[SOLVED] Question/Help - Unable to log into console

[jfonz25]

I am unable to log into the console of one my linux servers. When I type my username/pw at the prompt, it goes right back to the login prompt. It doesn't even give me an access denied message (like i typed the wrong pw).

I have no issues sshing to the box w/ the same username/pw.

Am I missing something in my /etc/inittab or is there another place where you can disable a console login?

FYI..Linux noob here..

Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

[Ziplock]

Hi there,

I am going to assume that you can log in as root on the host in question, otherwise the following won't be possible.

Check /var/log/messages for indications of the problem.

less /var/log/messages

Look for refences to the username in question.

You can also see if PAM is having an issue:

pam_tally

or

pam_tally2

if you have a 64 bit operating system installed.

If you are authenticating over a network, other issues could be causing this. Try the above first.

[jfonz25]

Ziplock -

Thanks for the reponse!

I check /var/log/messages and didn't see anything related to my ID and a login. I also did a tail -f on it while i tried to log into the console and nothing popped.

I ran the pam_tally command, and this was the output return

User admjfons (3000) has 3

The command pam_tally2 just came back to the prompt w/o output.

Couple things to note...
- If I type a bad password on the console, it comes back w/ "login incorrect" and the pam_tally output increased by 1.

- I am logging onto the console via ILO

- I have recently built 4 linux servers w/ the exact same installation disk. Once RHEL 5 was installed, I made changes to /etc/login.defs, /etc/ssh/sshd_config, /etc/inittab, /etc/pam.d/login, & /etc/pam.d/system-auth.

- Out of the 4 servers built, I am only able to access the server (from the console) on 1 of them. I am reviewing all the updated files now looking for a typo or something like that.

Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[jfonz25]

Ziplock -

Found the problem. In /etc/pam.d/login the following line was added incorrectly. I don't think the path needs to be there.

# The below line was added as requirement for RAC on 21Mar11
session required /lib/security/pam_limits.so

I changed it to this and was able to log into the console.

# The below line was added as requirement for RAC on 21Mar11
session required pam_limits.so

[Ziplock]

Glad you found the answer! Thanks for letting us know too.

[eyeoncomputers]

Another thing you can do is reboot the server and during the grub boot, add an option to boot in single user mode. This will bypass any login and drop you to a command prompt where you may be able to correct the issue.