I think I...don't know

Edward Glowacki glowack2@msu.edu
Thu, 25 Oct 2001 15:17:39 -0400


Quoted from Josh Grabarek 7722 on Thu, Oct 25, 2001 at 02:42:15PM -0400:
> I can only login using a user account to my linux machine and then I can su
> over to root but I cannot login as root.  

Well, the problem with logging in as root isn't all bad, generally
you *should* only su to root when you need to.  However, there are
times when logging in as root is good, so yeah, you probably should
get that fixed.  Is this a local login (from the console?), or a
remote login through telnet or SSH?  

If you're trying to log in as root via SSH, you'll probably have
to edit the sshd config file.  Where exactly that file is and what
it is named depends on the version of SSH (SSH/SSH2 vs OpenSSH),
and which distribution you are running.

For OpenSSH, it's probably going to be /etc/ssh/sshd_config or
/usr/local/etc/sshd_config.

For SSH/SSH2, it's probably going to be /etc/ssh2/sshd2_config or
/usr/local/etc/ssh2/sshd2_config.

In either case, you'll have to set "PermitRootLogin    yes".

For local logins or telnet, it's probably controlled by PAM,
so you'll probably have to edit the configuration for that.
I'm not sure where that would be on a linux box, but I'd try
/etc/pam.conf or run "man pam" or "man -k pam" and see what
it can tell you.

> Also my env command pulls up all
> kinds of weird stuff.  

What kind of weird stuff?

> Am I in the wrong shell and if so how do you switch
> shell's.  

Which shell are you using?  Generally to change shells, I run "vipw"
to edit the password file and change my shell that way.  However,
some versions of "passwd" allow you to specify a shell to change
to, and it takes care of it for you, so I'd run "man passwd" and
see what it says.

> I have never been sure of this.  Also how do you change which GUI
> to start in.

I edit .xinitrc, but there might be an easier way depending on
what distribution of Linux you are using.  I'm more of a FreeBSD
guy myself, so unfortunately I can't help you with finding such
an easy-to-use solution to your problem.  This of course hits
on one of the major problems with Unix systems: configuration
of software! ;)

> 
> *Josh*

Hope that helps and wasn't too complicated, I wrote it pretty
quick and tried to accomodate too many possibilities... ;)

ED

-- 
Edward Glowacki				glowack2@msu.edu
GLLUG Peon  				http://www.gllug.org
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
                -- Jules de Gaultier