Unable to log in as Root on the terminal - both CLI & GUI mode.

[JMJJohn]

Hi

I am not a newbie with Linux - can understand most of the concepts and understand scripting - but still only the very basics.

I have a Server running FC3 - which is my DC, MX, etc etc. A friend of mine set it up for me.

On the authantication side - it uses the LDAP (Samba-Ldap tools)

Now this is my problem - we had a power cut - and the UPS also did not hold & cut off. When the power came back - one of my collegues tried to log in as root, so that she could get the VM inside the machine running. She used the wrong password - I am not sure how many times...
Now the problem is that - when we try and log in as root thru the GUI - it gives us a msg saying "the account has been disabled by the administrator". On the CLI - it basically goes back to the login command after entering the password. SSHing as root does not seem to work.

Meanwhile I can log into one of the windows clients in my domain as root and change the password. I can also long into webmin - using the root account. When I try and run any command from the CLI as another user using the "sudo" it just asks me to keep trying the password.

I logged into the system in single used mode & changed the root password & am able to access the passwd & shadow file. There is no "!" in the passwd or shadow file to indicate that the account is disabled.

All the other users seem to be unaffected - they are able to log into the Linux shell & windows clients.

solutions? Thankx in advance...

[JMJJohn]

Hi Guys - solved the problem for now. I am still not sure what went wrong in the backend ... but I am sure it has got something to do with Ldap.

This is what I did -
I logged into webmin.
Under the system module - there is a module for changing user passwords - I selected root & changed the password.
And bingo - now I am able to log in via the CLI

Thank you guys fot your attention. But I would sure like to know what went wrong - please let me know what log's to check ...