Bug 7564

Summary: login: input in flex scanner failed
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Eric Bourque <ericb>
Component: util-linuxAssignee: Crutcher Dunnavant <crutcher>
Status: CLOSED WORKSFORME QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.1   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2000-02-04 00:24:23 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Eric Bourque 1999-12-03 19:37:15 UTC
After rebooting a RH6.1 system which has been working fine for several
months, I suddenly can not log in as any user but root. There is no
/etc/nologin file, I have updated initscripts, and most other packages
which have errata associated with them. The error I get when logging in as
non-root user on a console is:

"input in flex scanner failed"

If I log in as root and su (or su -) to the other account, all works well,
so it seems to not be an authentication problem.

Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 1999-12-03 19:50:59 UTC
The message is not from login, but rather from /lib/security/pam_console.so,
a PAM helper module used by /bin/login.

You most likely have a damaged configuration. The simplest fix is
to reinstall the pam package (pam-0.68-7 in Red Hat 6.1) using
	rpm -U --force pam-0.68-7.*.rpm
and see whether that corrects the problem. If not, you'll have to examine
your PAM configuration in /etc/pam.d/*. Look for random file corruption
that can occur when a machine is rebooted after a crash or from a sudden
power down.

Comment 2 Elliot Lee 2000-02-04 00:24:59 UTC
No response from reporter - assumed resolved.