Re: root login on console not allowed -- why and how?

[michael <linux@networkingnewsletter.org.uk>]

On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 08:12 -0500, Kent West wrote:
> Andreas Ntaflos wrote:
> 
> >A colleague of mine set up a Debian 3.1 (or was ist 3.0?) box a couple
> >of months ago and has had the following problem since then:
> >
> >When booting the machine everything seems fine and it gets to the login
> >prompt eventually. There every non-system, non-root user can login and
> >(if authorized) do an `su'. All is well. A login as the superuser,
> >however, fails. No matter what password is entered, the system refuses to
> >let us in as root. The root-password can be changed without problem
> >when `su'-ed to root so the problem is not that it's mistyped at the
> >prompt or anything.
> >
> >A (I think) related problem is that there's only one virtual console
> >available (the first). Pressing Alt-F2, ..., F12 doesn't work, no other
> >ttys are there. That disturbs me.
> >  
> >
> That _is_ odd; something must've gone wrong during the install.
> 
> I'd start by looking in "/etc/inittab", to see if it looks normal.
> 
> I'd also install chkrootkit; your colleague may have been compromised.
> 

I'm sure I've seen options (in Gnome setup & sshd_config) that restrict
whether root logins at gdm allowed or whether root can ssh into the box,
resp...