[vox-tech] Not able to log into root.

[Peter Jay Salzman]

hi shawn,

i had the same thought myself, but didn't post it.  now that you bring
it up...

rusty, something happened between the last time you were able to su and
the time at which su stopped working.

rusty, is this a woody system?  if so, su belongs to the package
"login".  the current version of login is 20000902-12 (you can get this
by 'dpkg -p login').   if your OS and package version number match this,
check your md5sum.  here's mine:

5d324ad212b2ff8f767637ac1a8071ec  /bin/su

pete



begin Shawn P. Neugebauer <spn@ucdavis.edu> 
> sounds good peter, but why would it change??  i'd be worried...
> 
> i tried a little experiment (don't try this at home boys and girls).  as a 
> backup, i opened a root shell.  then, in another shell, i changed the
> permissions on /bin/su to 755.  when i try to su to root, i just get
> "incorrect password" (this is RH 7.x).  i tried several combinations of
> permissions (4755, 6755, 755), owner, and group, and all either work or
> return "incorrect password."  
> 
> so, changing the permissions may indeed correct the problem, but i'd
> wonder how it got that way.  do you have any way to know that the
> machine has not been rooted??
> 
> shawn.