/bin/login quits working!

Hi all,
I am having a problem with /bin/login, every once in a while it
quits working for the root user (other users can execute /bin/login
and it works fine) but not the root user. If I do an "init q" it
starts working again, until whatever happens happens again and it
quits. When it stops I have tried doing an strace to see if I can see
what is going on but nothing seems to stick out. (if it would help I
can post the results of the strace the next time it happens)

When I say it stops working what this means is that when root executes
/bin/login, I get the login prompt but then the session "freezes" at
the passwd prompt. Any advice suggestions or ideas EXTREAMLY welcome.

This is an issue for us becuase we have a process that runs as root
(to answer incomming modem calls and then fork /bin/login to allow the
user/process to login)

thanks again

dougc

"doug chanco" <doug@chancofamily.com> wrote in message
news:213d1338.0401061224.78161254@posting.google.c om...
> Hi all,
> I am having a problem with /bin/login, every once in a while it
> quits working for the root user (other users can execute /bin/login
> and it works fine) but not the root user. If I do an "init q" it
> starts working again, until whatever happens happens again and it
> quits. When it stops I have tried doing an strace to see if I can see
> what is going on but nothing seems to stick out. (if it would help I
> can post the results of the strace the next time it happens)
>
> When I say it stops working what this means is that when root executes
> /bin/login, I get the login prompt but then the session "freezes" at
> the passwd prompt. Any advice suggestions or ideas EXTREAMLY welcome.
>
> This is an issue for us becuase we have a process that runs as root
> (to answer incomming modem calls and then fork /bin/login to allow the
> user/process to login)
>
> thanks again
>
> dougc

I'd try recompiling /bin/login with debugging info (-g flag alone). Then
try reproducing the problem while running it in the debugger to see where
it's hanging.