This is my output from ldd /bin/login : libshadow.so.0 => /lib/libshadow.so.0 (0x40020000) libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x4003a000) libpam.so => /lib/libpam.so (0x40068000) libpam_misc.so => /lib/libpam_misc.so (0x40070000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x40073000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40076000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000) <--- snip >...this is an LFS (Linux From > Scratch) system so everything is done from source. <--- snip If so, did you check my paper - something like "PAM and others" on LFS site ? <--- snip > ... I'm sure I am just missing some > vital element. <--- snip There are many ways to do something wrong. Most silly is to install newer util-linux without configuring HAVE_PAM=yes HAVE_SHADOW=yes on the top of your pam-shadow aware stuff... Sergey Ostrovsky.