Re: Command 'su' is not working in virtual console

[Bart-Jan Vrielink <bartjan@vrielink.net>]

On 12/16/11 21:07, Freddy Spierenburg wrote:
> Hi Marko,
>
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 08:51:58PM +0100, Marko Randjelovic wrote:
>    
> > su does not ask for a password, just exits imediately with exit status 1.
> >      
> Have you already tried to strace it, to possibly see what's going
> on? And if so, where does it end?
>    

You shouldn't be able to strace suid programs.

Marko, I do not exactly know what the cause of this problem is, but I 
would inspect the /etc/login.defs file (and then especially the value of 
the CONSOLE variable) and also look around in /etc/pam.d/su (and 
included files) and the /etc/security directory (especially the 
access.conf file). These are some of the places where one could 
configure su to behave more or less like you describe.