Cannot login as root in terminal

[Jeff Vian]

On Thu, 2006-01-05 at 15:34 +0100, Jon Jahren wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-01-05 at 14:21 +0000, Andy Green wrote:
> 
> > 
> > what does
> > 
> > ll /bin/su
> > 
> > say?  Something like this?
> > 
> > -rwsr-xr-x  1 root root 78837 Jul 25 16:36 /bin/su
> > 
> > especially the first part
> > 
> > -rws
> > 
> > -Andy
> 
> It says:
> "[jon at localhost ~]$ ll /bin/su
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 jon root 59740 Jul 25 17:39 /bin/su"
> 
> I've tried typing my password slowly, checking my keyboard layout,
> changing password, _removing_ the password from /etc/shadow and creating
> a new one, but alas. I just get "incorrect password" from the terminal.
> 
That file size is noticeably different than Andy's although it is the
same size as mine.  The ownership and permissions are wrong so even if
it is otherwise correct it cannot get you the permissions to do a true
'su'.  Note the SUID bit.

[jeff at eagle ~]$ ll /bin/su
-rwsr-xr-x  1 root root 59740 Jul 25 10:39 /bin/su


I would suspect that the box is "owned", or that you have otherwise
changed the file somehow.