Was working, then with a reboot the following no longer works attempting to “su to root” within a console, both XFCE Terminal and X-Term
su
su root
the error is
Incorrect Password
But, everything else which uses sudo and root permissions does work, eg
sudo /sbin/ifonfig
sudo yast
and
Launching YAST2 from menu
Also, logging into an XFCE session as root does still work
Years ago in an earlier openSUSE (11.1?) when I saw this in KDE, I was able to resolve with the following procedure which does not work
Login in Desktop Session as root
Reset password from within a console, using the same password
On 2013-06-25 22:46, tsu2 wrote:
>
> openSUSE 12.3
> XFCE Desktop
>
> Was working, then with a reboot the following no longer works
> attempting to “su to root” within a console, both XFCE Terminal and
> X-Term
Try to login as root in text mode - does it work?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Unfortunately, I have have tried typing very slowly and carefully.
And, the procedure described in the thread requires being able to login as root. My described procedure is a variation on that, logging in as root in another session to reset the password.
Seems to be very specific to how the XFCE Terminal console accesses authentication since root credentials work in every other scenario.
This occurred when a root console was likely left open during a shutdown/reboot in a virtual machine, maybe something to avoid but I wouldn’t expect to be fragile.
If it’s any consolation to myself, since it’s a VM I can destroy/re-build from a base image I use to generate function-specific VMs, but this image did take over a day to create…
And yes, I wouldn’t ordinarily login directly to a root session but it should be done <when necessary> for testing and fixing.
> Unfortunately, I have have tried typing very slowly and carefully.
>
> And, the procedure described in the thread requires being able to login
> as root. My described procedure is a variation on that, logging in as
> root in another session to reset the password.
>
> Seems to be very specific to how the XFCE Terminal console accesses
> authentication since root credentials work in every other scenario.
I just opened an xfce terminal, did “su -”, no problem. I don’t see why
it would act differently than xterm or gnome or kde.
> This occurred when a root console was likely left open during a
> shutdown/reboot in a virtual machine, maybe something to avoid but I
> wouldn’t expect to be fragile.
I can not imagine why it would matter. I often halt or reboot the
machine with terminals running.
> And yes, I wouldn’t ordinarily login directly to a root session but it
> should be done <when necessary> for testing and fixing.
Yes, IMNSHO it is a valid reason.
Check this, just in case:
grep PERMISSION_SECURITY /etc/sysconfig/security
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
On 06/26/2013 04:46 PM, tsu2 wrote:
> Seems to be very specific to how the XFCE Terminal console accesses
> authentication
sorry, i don’t have any other ‘bright ideas’ on this problem…never
seen it before…hmmmm, you might spend some time thinking about
how the VM/XFCE might have somehow ‘lost’ its keyboard map or
or…OH, just for fun try engaging the caps lock and try again…i
have seen (rarely) that the “caps lock” can get out of sync (so when
you have it on it is not, and when you have it off, it is actually on)
OH! and there are settings (somewhere) to set the numlock on (or off)
at boot…just for fun (and especially if you have any numbers in
your root pass) also cycle the numlock and try again…that is
(what?) FOUR variations (if using a full keyboard and using its
number pad, if using a laptop with an Fn key it gets more complicated)
lets say the recorded password the system has is ThisIsMyPass5-55
num cap
lock lock
on off ThisIsMyPass5-55
off off ThisIsMyPass-
off on tHISiSmYpASS5-55
on on tHISiSmYpASS5-55
Last night “su root” all of a sudden** started working on its own!**
After 2 solid days banging against the problem (Yes, more than a day before I even posted)
Looks like its “self-fix” is holding after 10 hours banging away at it through a number of reboots and executing a number of tasks.
So, I guess it’ll have to remain a mystery why the problem occurred in the first place and why it all of a sudden resolved itself despite all attempts to resolve including what I described in the original post, numerous reboots, booting to Recovery Mode, a couple Updates and maybe more I can’t remember…
If I was to speculate, as I described something very specific to XFCE Terminal root authentication was corrupted but was somehow recovered. Although I was considering an app uninstallo/re-install, I never got around trying that.
Advice to others? Although it’s not likely practical if you see this I’d recommend numerous reboots over days…
