No shell after login

[ziofil]

Hello forum people!
I would appreciate help with a strange problem. While I'm able to login and access to shell as root, new users can only authenticate and log, but cannot access to shell. That is, I can see the welcome message but shell exit immediately and I have to login again. The new user has been created using adduser command and the command give no errors. The problem affects any non-root user.

The system, a WM8505 mini laptop, has been installed using debootstrap and anything seems to work fine. I have tried to use either wheeze and squeeze releases, and got the same problem.

The /etc/passwd is correctly setup, and tried to use chsh to change the login shell with /etc/dash, /etc/bash and /etc/sh

The /var/log/auth.log give no errors, this is output after login:
login[611]: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user phil by LOGIN(uid=0)
pam_unix(login:session): session closed for user phil

Su command not even work: when I use: su - phil it silently returns the old root shell.

What is the cause of the problem, in your opionion?
Thanks, filippo

[Jonathan183]

does your regular user own their home folder?

[ziofil]

Yes, for example /home/phil is owned by phil (new user) with permissions drwxr-xr-x and all the files inside, .bash_logout, .bashrc and .profile are owned by phil too.. Furthermore, there is no file /etc/nologin (which prevent regualer users to login) and installation is fresh.

[Jonathan183]

can you post cat /etc/passwd ? and you are using /bin/bash as the shell ...

[ziofil]

Well, this is my /etc/passwd:

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/sh
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/bin/sh
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/bin/sh
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/bin/sh
man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/bin/sh
lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/bin/sh
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/bin/sh
news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/bin/sh
uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/bin/sh
proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/bin/sh
www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/bin/sh
backup:x:34:34:backup:/var/backups:/bin/sh
list:x:38:38:Mailing List Manager:/var/list:/bin/sh
irc:x:39:39:ircd:/var/run/ircd:/bin/sh
gnats:x:41:41:Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin):/var/lib/gnats:/bin/sh
nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/nonexistent:/bin/sh
libuuid:x:100:101::/var/lib/libuuid:/bin/sh
phil:x:1000:1000:phil,,,:/home/phil:/bin/bash

[ziofil]

Maybe /etc/group can help too (I tried to add new user to some groups, previously the new user was associated to adm and tty too but it did't work all the same):

root:x:0:
daemon:x:1:
bin:x:2:
sys:x:3:
adm:x:4:
tty:x:5:
disk:x:6:
lp:x:7:
mail:x:8:
news:x:9:
uucp:x:10:
man:x:12:
proxy:x:13:
kmem:x:15:
dialout:x:20:phil
fax:x:21:
voice:x:22:
cdrom:x:24:phil
floppy:x:25:phil
tape:x:26:
sudo:x:27:phil
audio:x:29:phil
dip:x:30:
www-data:x:33:
backup:x:34:
operator:x:37:
list:x:38:
irc:x:39:
src:x:40:
gnats:x:41:
shadow:x:42:
utmp:x:43:
video:x:44:phil
sasl:x:45:
plugdev:x:46:phil
staff:x:50:
games:x:60:
users:x:100:phil
nogroup:x:65534:
libuuid:x:101:
crontab:x:102:
phil:x:1000:

[Jonathan183]

how much space do you have available ... what does df -h report?

[ziofil]

Well, it reports:

rootfs 6.5 GB 455M 5.7G 8% /
/dev/root 6.5G 455M 5.7G 8% /
devtmpfs 51M 0 51M 0% /dev
tmpfs 11M 156K 10M 2% /run
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M /run/lock
tmpfs 21M 0 21M 0% /tmp
tmpfs 21M 4.0K 21M 1% /run/shm

[ziofil]

I tried to install dbus and libpam-ck-connector from repositories but no success. Maybe there is something not installed? It is a wheezy base system, installed with debootstrap....

[ziofil]

Problem was solved using the procedure described here plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=4879.0;wap2
I added new file in /etc/sysctl.d with this content:

# protect bottom 64k of memory from mmap to prevent NULL-dereference
# attacks against potential future kernel security vulnerabilities.
# (Added in kernel 2.6.23.)
vm.mmap_min_addr = 32768