su: pam_start: error 26

[giuseppe_sansone]

Hi,

yesterday I made a System Update on my B3 to Version 2.6.0.2.
Now I can't perform a su via SSH.

When I type su I got the error:
su: pam_start: error 26

Now I have no root-rights. I only can login into the Web-Frontend.

Thanks in advanced

Giuseppe

[MouettE]

Did you reboot your box after the update ?

I would suggest to boot the rescue system, mount the drive and edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config to allow root login over ssh (see http://wiki.excito.com/w/index.php?title=Rescue_System). Then restart your b3, ssh into it as root and try fixing your error 26 from there (google has some suggestions).

[giuseppe_sansone]

Hi MouettE,
yes, I rebooted the system after the Update.

I tried your solution, but I still can't access via ssh.
Now I reinstalled the box.
Thanks

[Gordon]

Too late for this particular instance, but in case someone else hits this:

One of the suggested fixes is to reinstall coreutils and if the B3 web interface is still functional you can use that to do it. Simply browse to http://b3/admin/settings/software/install/coreutils and hit the install button. It's a nice hack and you can do this for every package in the repo.

[giuseppe_sansone]

Hi Gordon,

yes, a bit too late
But, for the future, is this reinstallation the solution for the corrupted pam file or for the ssh root access?
The coreutils contains the su.

[giuseppe_sansone]

Hi Gordon,

because of your post I had the heart to update the B3 after reinstallation.
Again I had the problem with the su.
In the log I got following entry:
Sep 5 18:21:41 B3 sshd[2942]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam for loginuser from 192.178.168.22 port 51083 ssh2
Sep 5 18:21:41 B3 sshd[2942]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user loginuser by (uid=0)
Sep 5 18:21:46 B3 su[3020]: PAM _pam_load_conf_file: unable to open /etc/pam.d/common-auth
Sep 5 18:21:46 B3 su[3020]: PAM error loading (null)
Sep 5 18:21:46 B3 su[3020]: PAM _pam_init_handlers: error reading /etc/pam.d/su
Sep 5 18:21:46 B3 su[3020]: PAM _pam_init_handlers: [Critical error - immediate abort]
Sep 5 18:21:46 B3 su[3020]: PAM error reading PAM configuration file
Sep 5 18:21:46 B3 su[3020]: PAM pam_start: failed to initialize handlers
Sep 5 18:21:46 B3 su[3020]: pam_start: error 26

Then I tried you hack with the coreutils, then reboot, but still the problem that I cannot use su.
Any other idea?

[Gordon]

I don't really know what package /etc/pam.d/su belongs to in Debian (currently don't have a B3 running with the original OS), but you could try if reinstalling pam and pambase fixes the issue.

[DanielM]

I don't really know what package /etc/pam.d/su belongs to in Debian

Should be the package "login" according to https://packages.debian.org/search?suit ... pam.d%2Fsu

/Daniel