unable to login to the console from runlevel 3

[alan2803]

Hi,
When I switch to runlevel 3 (change the line in inittab) and reboot without X - I cant login
to any user from the console. It keeps returning the login prompt again. No errors are
returned.
I can ssh in from a remote machine (as any user) fine.
I have console access from runlevel 3 on x86 bit not on x86-64.
I have all the updates.
Alan

[michaelnel]

Check /var/log/secure and /var/log/messages for errors.

Can root log in?

What if you are in runlevel 5 and don't change inittab at all, but instead issue the command "telinit 3" from a terminal session as root? Can you log into a user account then?

Are you using only local authentication (/etc/passwd), or some network auth scheme like ldap?

[alan2803]

Hi - thanks for replying.

The user 'root' is not able to log in.
Not using ldap or anything like that.
I will try your telinit 3 command and post what happens.
Ill try what I did earlier again and check the logs you suggest.

Thanks
Alan

[alan2803]

Hi,
There is errors in /var/log/secure - I think this is the problem -

Sep 17 08:35:31 devora05 login: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_limits.so)
Sep 17 08:35:31 devora05 login: PAM [error: /lib/security/pam_limits.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32]
Sep 17 08:35:31 devora05 login: PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_limits.so
Sep 17 08:35:35 devora05 login: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user root by LOGIN(uid=0)
Sep 17 08:35:35 devora05 login: Module is unknown
Sep 17 08:35:37 devora05 login: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_limits.so)
Sep 17 08:35:37 devora05 login: PAM [error: /lib/security/pam_limits.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32]
Sep 17 08:35:37 devora05 login: PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_limits.so
Sep 17 08:35:41 devora05 login: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user root by LOGIN(uid=0)
Sep 17 08:35:41 devora05 login: Module is unknown
Sep 17 08:35:44 devora05 login: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_limits.so)
Sep 17 08:35:44 devora05 login: PAM [error: /lib/security/pam_limits.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32]
Sep 17 08:35:44 devora05 login: PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_limits.so
Sep 17 08:35:46 devora05 login: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user oracle by LOGIN(uid=0)
Sep 17 08:35:46 devora05 login: Module is unknown
Sep 17 08:35:53 devora05 login: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_limits.so)
Sep 17 08:35:53 devora05 login: PAM [error: /lib/security/pam_limits.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32]
Sep 17 08:35:53 devora05 login: PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_limits.so
Sep 17 08:35:56 devora05 login: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user oracle by LOGIN(uid=0)
Sep 17 08:35:56 devora05 login: Module is unknown


Thanks
Alan

[michaelnel]

According to "yum provides pam_limits.so", it is provided by the "pam.i386" package. Is that installed on your system?

What does "ls -l /lib/security" show?

There are both pam.x86_64 and pam.i386. Both are installed on my CentOS 5.2 server. Are they both installed on yours ("yum list pam" will show you)?

[alan2803]

I found the problem - this is due to an error in the oracle 11g installation docs.

It says you add this entry into /etc/pam.d/login

session required /lib/security/pam_limits.so

When I changed the line to :

session required /lib64/security/pam_limits.so

I was able to log into the console at runlevel 3.

So we can blame Oracle again !!!

Thanks for your help !

[michaelnel]

Thanks for the feedback. It's always good for us to know what the resolution of the problem was, and sometimes folks forget to let us know.

Glad you got it working!

[babinlonston]

Faced the same issue after doing a yum update from Oracle 6.8 to 6.9

The solution still applies for Oracle Linux 6.9 and variants.

Thank a lot.