FTP and smtp do not require a full shell. Telnet does. The main difference between an ftp-only or mail-only user and a full system user is that the latter has a shell defined in its corresponding line in /etc/passwd. The others would have something like /sbin/nologin. If you can log in to ftp and transfer files back and forth, but not login with a shell, my guess is the user's directory is not accessible. This could be due to a number of things: - the user's directory has been erased, or was changed in /etc/passwd. It could also have changed ownership (root can do that and it is not difficult to have it happen accidentally). - the shell field in /etc/passwd may have been erased or changed for that user, so the account is ftp-only. Other variants that escape me now could be the cause, but the fundamental issue seems to be the impossibility to create a shell and assign a working directory to the account. Gerardo Juarez On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 12:42 AM, Markus Koßmann <mkossmann_ml1@xxxxxx> wrote: > Am Samstag, 11. Juni 2011 schrieb terry white: >> ... ciao: >> >> all of a sudden, i am only able to login as root. this is not >> something i was trying to accomplish, and at a loss in figuring out >> how i did. anyway. >> >> as a given, login as a valid user, with correct password, terminated >> immediately, with a new login prompt. invalid login attempts iterate >> until a new session initiated. >> >> ftp, and smtp allowed, telnet fails. >> >> i'm not seeing anything mentioned in the logs with regard to failed >> normal user login. i'm at a loss as to where i might start looking. >> >> any thoughts, suggestion would be much appreciated ... > hard disk full ? > > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
