UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hiya all,

I have Fedora core 3 installed - as a server - onto an old PC.

Root u/n and psw lets me in

However, all the other accounts no longer worked.
They use to work until yesterday...

I now get the error at the login screen:
"AUTHENTICATIONFAILED"


I hope this is a common "starters" mistake - with some std trroubleshoot ideas....


Please assist:
Martin


What I have done:
---------------------------
1.
*** dunno if this caused the problem..... ****
*** I changed setting back and restarted, - no good.

Changed Server name (Hat>System Settings>network>DNS<tab>)

* I Changed back to blank - no good.


2.
reset other user passwords - from ROOT login - no good


3.
Created new Account - from ROOT login - no good

were any changes done to the server yesterday aside from what you did to troubleshoot?

Hiya Just Ice,


I'm trying to get my XP laptop to talk to the FC-3 Server over the office lan.... ggggrrrr!


so I've tried starting up different services (eg. SMB, FTP deamons etc)


I'm sure I've seen a prev post about this ages ago - but can't find it!

is the box on dns? if so, is the new name listed properly? what about any nfs-mounted directories --- are they still accessible? btw, how are you able to login to the box? is it trhough a direct connection to it, through the console, or through the network?

HIya J I,

I'm sitting infront of it, so tapping in the UN and passwords on the keyboard itself


Cheers
Martin

can you ping anything out of that box? how about access a directory thatis NFS-mounted?

Check that your /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files aren't corrupted. Make sure the entries for each of those users still exists, has the correct number of fields, has an encrypted password in shadow instead of !! (which is for system accounts you don't log into).

If that looks ok create a new user, see if that new user works, then compare the entry for the new user to the old ones and see if you can spot any differences.