Re: I can not su to root on my Sun Solaris 9 (SPARC) box, even with the correct password

From: Walt R (wmreinemer_at_tns.net)
Date: 12/30/03 

Date: 30 Dec 2003 11:06:20 -0800

KevinWinstonShen@netscape.net (Kevin Shen) wrote in message news:<79b0bebf.0312291652.293a5488@posting.google.com>...
> Could someone help me out with my problem / issue? I would greatly
> appreciate and be thankful for any help and / or guidance that anyone
> can give me.
>
> I recently upgraded the OS on my Sun box from Solaris 8 to Solaris 9
> (SPARC platform). When I login as a regular user and then switch my
> login user id to root (using the su - ) command, I am not able to log
> in as root. I used the correct root password but still am not able to
> successfully su to root. I get the following error, when I attempt to
> su to root, in the listing below:
>
>
> Mon Dec 29 18:28:26 #whoami
> kshen
> Mon Dec 29 18:28:28 #su -
> Password:
> su: incorrect password
>
>
> I have the following configured and running on my Sun box. I am
> running an Ultra 1 140, with 512 MB of RAM, an externally attached
> SCSI hard drive array, and a 100 Base-T S-Bus Network card. Yeah, I
> must admit that this box may be slow for Solaris 9, but it works well
> for what it is primarily being used for- as an NFS / SAMBA (SMB) file
> server. I am using NIS / YP for my authentication and this Sun box is
> NOT neither running as an NIS master nor as an NIS slave server. The
> NIS server that this Sun box "ypbind's to" is a Red Hat Linux 9 box.
> I am using the standard PAM-based authentication on this Sun box and
> am not using Kerebros of any one of those new authentication schemes /
> protocols.
>
> In addition the user id in my listing, "kshen" is an account that is
> being propagated through the NIS / YP Linux server. Also, this user,
> kshen is in the following groups, as shown in the listing below:
>
>
> Mon Dec 29 18:28:36 #group Mon Dec 29 18:28:36 #groups kshen
> kshen : wheel xgrp company
>
>
> I have also modified my /etc/groups file and added a group, wheel and
> reassigned the group staff id # from 10 to 11, my /etc/groups file, as
> shown below:
>
>
> root::0:root
> other::1:
> bin::2:root,bin,daemon
> sys::3:adm,bin,root,sys
> adm::4:root,adm,daemon
> uucp::5:root,uucp
> mail::6:root
> tty::7:root,adm
> lp::8:root,lp,adm
> nuucp::9:root,nuucp
> wheel::10:root:+
> staff::11:+
> daemon::12:root,daemon
> sysadmin::14:
> smmsp::25:smmsp
> nobody::60001:
> noaccess::60002:
> nogroup::65534:
> +:::
>
>
> I had the same type of setup mentioned above, except that it was
> running on Solaris 8 and had no problems to su - to root from a
> regular authenticated user. Does anyone know what may be wrong with
> my setup? Is there something that I may have overlooked or is there
> something that I am missing, in order to get things to work properly?
> Again, I would greatly appreciate any help and / or guidance regarding
> this issue. Thanks.
**
<Excerpt>
> Mon Dec 29 18:28:26 #whoami
> kshen
> Mon Dec 29 18:28:28 #su -
> Password:
> su: incorrect password
</Excerpt>

I am not familiar with Solaris, but is "-" another name for root?

try:
   $ su <Enter>
   $ su root <Enter>

Walt R.

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