Re: [cobalt-users] questions about becoming root

[Parker Morse <morse@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday, December 30, 2002, at 06:36  PM, Justin Schimnowski wrote:
> I ssh to the RaQ and login as myself, su - admin, which works, then
> try to su - ( or just su ) and get the above message.

Have you tried connecting via ssh and logging in as admin, and THEN su - ?

On our Qube3, I can connect as admin and su - directly to root. However, 
if I log in as myself, then su - admin, then ("as admin") su -, I get "su:
 incorrect password" as you reported. Based on this data, I speculate that 
your problem is that "su" is reading the attempt to become root as coming 
from your (relatively unprivileged) user, and NOT from the admin user, and 
therefore denying you.

So:

> Three questions:
> 1) Should I be able to su and become root?

Yes.

> 2) Should I worry about this since I have changed the admin password?

Not if you changed the admin password from the GUI; as has been mentioned,
 that will reset the root password as well. (You should, of course, then 
change the root password to something else.)

> 3) I am considering doing a reinstall with the OSRCD. Should I do that?

Perhaps, but if this works, don't do the reinstall just to reset the root 
password. (You'll face the same problem all over again after the reinstall,
 if I've guessed correctly.)

pjm