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From: tbaca@wsmr-helstf1.army.mil (Thomas L. Baca)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
Subject: Re: su doen't work.
Date: 02 Aug 1995 15:34:31 GMT
Organization: High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility
Lines: 24
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <TBACA.95Aug2093432@wsmr-helstf1.army.mil>
References: <3vjkru$94c@engr.orst.edu> <3vk89d$286@salt.ncinter.net>
<3vm2jj$70h@engr.orst.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: wsmr-helstf1.army.mil
In-reply-to: bettens@gila.CS.ORST.EDU's message of 1 Aug 1995 20:25:23 GMT
>>>>> " " == Shae Bettencourt <bettens@gila.CS.ORST.EDU> writes:
> I can su to root when the computer first boots up. The problem
> is after a day or two, su will stall after I type my password
> and not spawn a root shell like normal.
Are you running X-Windows? We have seen the same behavior with su.
We found that shutting down the X server will immediately make the
problem disappear.
Recently, I had a remote login when this happened, so I ran 'top' to
try to get some clues. With an attempted su that was 'hung', we
shutdown the X server and watched Free mem jump from ~600K to ~10M and
the hung su attempt broke free and spawned its shell!
It's weird, but su is the only thing we've noticed not working in
these situations. Any ideas what's going on here?
thanks,
tom