After carefully installing the Linux Server a sconf time taking care to write down the root password, I complete the installation successfully and attempt to go to the root using "su" and am prompted for the root password. I enter the root password, (being careful to use the same case as the password was set during installation), and I recieve "incorrect root password". I am now on my third attempt at installing Redhat Linux 6.1 and am just about to send this hacker OS back to you people. (This is me venting about a product that was "acclaimed"). I should have stayed with Windows NT.
Have you checked that you have the same setting for the CAPS LOCK key both when setting the password and when trying to use it? A simple test for this is to install using an entirely numeric password entered with the digit keys at the top of the main keyboard (ie, NOT using the numeric keypad). Also, what happens if you try to log in directly as root, rather than logging in as somebody else and then using su? All I can say for certain is that in over 100 installs I've done to date, I've NEVER seen the problem you refer to other than (a) having CAPS LOCK on when entering the password, or (B) a configuration problem with su.
I've seen this occur under one other circumstance, which appears to be a bug in the install scripts... 1. Install RedHat Linux - any from 5.1 onwards will do. 2. As part of the install, enter a root password as requested. Assume the password entered is DUMBO all in upper case. 3. Find reason to use BACK to step through to before the root password entry screen. I had to do so recently. 4. On going through the install, re-encounter the screen asking for a root password, so re-enter the root password. Again, assume DUMBO is entered all in upper case. 5. BOOM !!! If this has taken place, the resulting root password is DUMBODUMBO rather than DUMBO as expected. It appears that when the root password screen is displayed, the previously entered password is remembered, but no indication of this fact is given. As a result, the password produced is the concatenation of the passwords entered, in the order they were entered. This can be verified by entering different passwords on different runs through that screen.
There are a couple of things which could be going on here. One is the thing that you mentioned, although I have never experienced the previous entry in the root password field being retained on a return trip to the screen. Another thing which could be going on is that in the installer prior to the latest one available in RawHide, the user was prompted for a keyboard, but that keyboard was not loaded into the X, so when the user entered the password in the GUI mode, the keymap was not loaded, so there was a good chance that the password would differ once the user rebooted the machine and the correct keymap was indeed loaded. This problem is fixed in the latest installer. Question, where were you typing "su" to get into the root account?
As regards the keyboard problem, I select the UK keyboard, and the root password I was trying to set up consisted entirely of lower case letters and digits. As far as I know, the position of those is identical between the UK and (default) US keyboards, so I would have to consider that unlikely. As for entering "su" to get a root account, I wasn't. If you read what I wrote CAREFULLY, you will note that after I had entered the desired root password on the screen that asks for it, I had backstepped to before it, then met it again when stepping forward from where I'd stepped backwards to. Since on the second pass through it, I had seen no sign that it had remembered the password I had entered the first time, I naturally entered it again. If I'm reading it right, then if I'd left those fields blank the second time through, it would have used the correct password instead of the doubled one it did in fact use.
One other comment - I said "any from 5.1 will do" in my original message because the same bug occurs in both 5.1 and 6.1, and I am therefore assuming that it also occurs in 5.2 and 6.0 - I haven't tried either. I have never used RedHat prior to 5.1, so can't comment on earlier ones.
rhw: if you will read carefully, the person that originally opened the bug says, 'attempt to go to the root using "su"' . . . this is why I am asking where "su" was typed from.
jturner: My reading of the situation as described by the reporter is that the root password set by the installation was not the one (s)he thought it was, and that was why (s)he was unable to "su" with it. Nobody asked whether (s)he was able to log in normally as root, so I may have misunderstood the situation. williamsmnd: Can you actually log in as root after installing, or is that affected as well? As regards the comments I made re a similar situation I had met, it made no difference whether I used "su" or tried to log in normally - either way, I had to enter the doubled password to do so, and not the one I had set.
Text mode should print "*" for password characters so that users can tell they are adding to the existing passwords.
Should do, maybe, but it didn't and still doesn't.
verified from rhw's earlier notes: using TUI mode in 6.2; enter an initial passwd & confirm (such as BIGDUMBO, it needs to be at least 6 chars); advance install screens, then back to before passwd screen; enter passwd screen; TUI passwd fields are blank, so reenter passwd & confirm BIGDUMBO; continue through install; upon reboot your login for root is BIGDUMBOBIGDUMBO ... this isn't a problem using GUI, as the asterisks are clearly visible in the proper fields...
This should be addressed in the Pinstripe beta.