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KDE root password no longer accepted


Jimtim
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Hi

 

I'm a bit of a newbie to Mandriva - and this is the first time I've ever posted something on a forum. The problem I have now is that my root password is no longer accepted by KDE. My password still works in a terminal, and I can run the MCC that way. Yesterday I installed Katapult and all the programmes it needs. Could one of these have changed the configuration of KDE? The problem seems to date from yesterday.

 

Thank you very much

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When you say that your password is not accepted by kde, would you elaborate? Do you mean you cannot login to kde as root?

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When you say that your password is not accepted by kde, would you elaborate? Do you mean you cannot login to kde as root?

 

 

No, I mean that when I want to do something that requires root privileges, configuring the computer for instance, my root password isn't accepted and I get the message "password incorrect". I have been using this password for a while now and so I am careful about the usual points: caps lock, etc. I have been looking at forums and I have seen that Mandriva can prompt users to change their root password after a few months. I have had no warning of this and, besides, it continues to work in the terminal.

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Prompts depend upon security levels. No mystery there. But, there is only one root user, and if it works in the console, then root is still using the same password. It does not matter if root is launching gui or CLI, root is root. 90% of the time, I use root in CLI, but MCC uses the same password to launch.

I am still a little unclear as to what you mean that root does not work in kde. Do you mean the gui stuff, like MCC?

 

You could launch a different desktop, like gnome, and see if the issue persists. If it does not, which I think will be the case, then your kde user directory has gotten botched. The file is /home/username/.kde Notice the "." prior to the file name. It makes it hidden file. Renaming this to ".kde.back" will cause kde to recreate the file. But, you will lose your customizations. If this works, then you can cut and paste your settings back in, or simply reset the desktop.

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When I say that the password doesn't work in kde, I do indeed mean that it doesn't work for the gui stuff. Sorry if I'm a bit vague - I'm still pretty new at this game.

I opened the hidden files in my user folder and changed .kde to .kde.back, but to no avail. However, after I did this I noticed another file named .kde. When I compare them, they don't have the same content (or rather one has considerably more content than the other):

The .kde I renamed has the following folders: Autostart, cache-localhost, cache-main.lan, DESKTOP_Entry, env, share, shutdown, socket-localhost, socket-main.lan, tmp-localhost, tmp-main.lan.

The other .kde contains the following files: cache-localhost, share, socket-localhost. This file looks like a partial copy of the previous one to me, but I'm not sure.

I'm sure it isn't terribly important not being able to put my password in gui when I can do it in the terminal, but I don't like not knowing what's going on. Perhaps this is a symptom of another, underlying problem?

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OK.

kde creates this directory for each user. By renaming the old directory, we were simply seeing if something in that directory was making this error. Since it didn't do anything, you could delete the new file, rename the old one back to .kde, and launch back into your old settings.

 

So that i understand correctly, root can work in the console, but the gui actions from the kde menu do not accept a root password. Is that correct? Do you use auto login?

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I found some info about kdesu not accepting the root password, but it was in an unstable version. I can't find any settings that would offer this as a "safety" feature.

 

What is your security level? Also, just as a hunch, turn off auto login and see what happens. You will simply be presented with a login screen from which you can login to kde. Are you the auto login user?

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Just a wild shot here; I had a similar kind of issue recently. The numlock got switched on automatically (by Mandriva) and changed all the vowels to numbers. I only found out by copying and pasting in the password characters from desktop filenames. :huh: I wonder if Katapult is doing this. Does your keyboard output look normal in a text editor eg. printing all the characters right?

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The keyboard looks normal. However, I would like to be able to actually see what the characters are when I type a password in gui. Who knows, maybe the keyboard becomes mysteriously un-configured then. Is this possible? Also, I tried following your hunch by switching off Katapult - still no joy.

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Jimtim, I suggest you do a simple test. Enter your passwod on the GUI terminal and observe the characters, then go to a non-graphic terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F#) and do the same. It is possible, that types keyboards used are not the same in the two enviromments, in which case some keys output different key-codes.

 

You may also save the output of your keyboard in each environment into a file like this:

echo "key-in-your-password\n" >> /tmp/my-saved-passw

and then compare the two.

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Yes, this is exactly what I was wondering - could the two environments be interpreting the character set differently? Can you run through the procedure step by step? I tried entering my password, typing the script you suggested and then looking in the temp files but I saw nothing. I also tried the other way round, ie writing the script and then typing the password. Perhaps I could disable the masking feature so that I can see in real time what's going on when I type a password in gui? If so, how?

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I'm not sure what you didn't understand, but here it is what you should do:

  • Log-in into your GUI environment as a regular user (not root), and open a terminal.
  • Enter the command; (NOTE: a single greater sign ">" here)
    echo "key-in-your-password" > /tmp/my-saved-passw

    Replace the text key-in-your-password with your root password.
     

  • Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 and log in with the same user name as the one used above in GUI.
  • Enter the command just like above, with a double greater sign ">>" no space between the two greater signs!
    echo "key-in-your-password" >> /tmp/my-saved-passw

    Of course as above also here replace the text key-in-your-password with your root password.
     

  • Finally, in either GUI or in a text mode (non-GUI), enter the following:
    cat /tmp/my-saved-passw

    and compare the two lines.

If the two entries are different you know, that something or someone has changed the setting of your locale i.e. (language and/or keyboard settings).

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OK, I've followed these steps precisely as laid out (thanks for the clear step-by-step instructions!)

When I type echo "my password" > /tmp/my-saved-password in a konsole in gui I get the message "permission denied"

When I type echo "my password" >> /tmp/my saved-passw in text mode I get a prompt and then when I do cat /tmp/my-saved-passw I my password is displayed.

 

So, is the fact that I get "permission denied" when I'm in GUI a sign that something's wrong?

Also, forgive me for being a little slow, but I don't understand how the first step will tell me something about why my password doesn't work in GUI as I'm doing the commands in a console and not in GUI itself.

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