ianbrn@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello,
> I had installed Linux and everything was OK. It is RHEL5, but this
> seems to be not an important fact.
>
> Now:
> I could login to that machine as root when I was connected directly
> to it.
> I could also login to that machine as root by ssh from other
> machines on the LAN.
>
> After somebody else did some installations on this machine (as root),
> the following happened:
> I could **NOT** login to that machine as root when I was connected
> directly to it.
> When I entered, at the login prompt, the root as user name and the
> password, there was a message of
> "user unknown" for half a second or less (I could hardly read it ) and
> that it ! the message vanished , and it returned to the login screen.
>
>
> I want to emphasize that strange as it may seem, I ***could*** login
> to that machine as root by ssh from other machines on the LAN with the
> same password, even when I was denied doing
> it when I was root as depicted above. So the password is OK.
>
> I want also to emphasize that I made sure that the /etc/passwd does
> include "root" entry,
> and it does.
>
> Any ideas what can be the reason for it and what should I do to enable
> login
> as root when connected directly ? What is going here ?
>
>
> Regards,
> IB

Sounds like someone has written a program pretending to be a shell, and
left it running.

Try a different console or Ctrl C or CTRL D
>