Re: only root allowed login ...

[Gerardo Juarez-Mondragon <gerardojm1957@xxxxxxxxx>]

FTP and smtp do not require a full shell. Telnet does. The main
difference between an ftp-only or mail-only user and a full system
user is that the latter has a shell defined in its corresponding line
in /etc/passwd. The others would have something like /sbin/nologin.

If you can log in to ftp and transfer files back and forth, but not
login with a shell, my guess is the user's  directory is not
accessible. This could be due to a number of things:

- the user's directory has been erased, or was changed in
/etc/passwd. It could also have changed ownership (root can do that
and it is not difficult to have it happen accidentally).

- the shell field in /etc/passwd may have been erased or changed for
that user,  so the account is ftp-only.

Other variants that escape me now could be the cause, but the
fundamental issue seems to be the impossibility to create a shell and
assign a working directory to the account.

Gerardo Juarez


On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 12:42 AM, Markus Koßmann <mkossmann_ml1@xxxxxx> wrote:
> Am Samstag, 11. Juni 2011 schrieb terry white:
>> ... ciao:
>>
>>      all of a sudden, i am only able to login as root.  this is not
>> something i was trying to accomplish, and at a loss in figuring out
>> how i did.  anyway.
>>
>>      as a given, login as a valid user, with correct password, terminated
>> immediately, with a new login prompt.  invalid login attempts iterate
>> until a new session initiated.
>>
>>      ftp, and smtp allowed, telnet fails.
>>
>>      i'm not seeing anything mentioned in the logs with regard to failed
>> normal user login.   i'm at a loss as to where i might start looking.
>>
>>      any thoughts, suggestion would be much appreciated ...
> hard disk full ?
>
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