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GNUser

Member

Registered: 2017-03-16

Posts: 570  

"Authentication failure" and no login prompt in tty1-tty6 [SOLVED]

I'm sorry to ask yet another question in this forum. I know I've asked a lot lately...

I'm on ASCII with MATE and lightdm. When I try to change from the console running my X session to any other virtual console (for example, by pressing Ctrl + Alt + F1), instead of getting the expected login prompt I'm seeing "Authentication failure" multiple times and no login prompt. Therefore, only tty7 with the X session is usable because I cannot login to tty1-tty6.

For example, after pressing Ctrl + Alt + F1 I see this:

Authentication failure

Authentication failure

_

There are actually many more than two "Authentication failure"s but you get the idea. The underscore represents the blinking cursor. There is no login prompt and pressing Enter has no effect. Therefore, there I can't do anything in tty1--all I can do is press Ctrl + Alt + F7 to return to the graphical session.

I tried disabling autologin in lightdm, but the same exact thing happens after manual login into the graphical session.

Any idea how to prevent the authentication failures and get a login prompt when I switch virtual consoles?

Last edited by GNUser (2018-03-02 00:31:17)

GNUser

Member

Registered: 2017-03-16

Posts: 570  

Re: "Authentication failure" and no login prompt in tty1-tty6 [SOLVED]

After logging in manually, I found something slightly different in one of the other (non-X) virtual consoles:

Authentication failure
INIT: Id "4" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
Authentication failure
INIT: Id "3" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "5" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "6" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
Authentication failure
Authentication failure
INIT: Id "2" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: No more processes left in this runlevel
Authentication failure
Authentication failure
Authentication failure
Authentication failure
Authentication failure
Authentication failure

Last edited by GNUser (2018-03-02 00:25:59)

GNUser

Member

Registered: 2017-03-16

Posts: 570  

Re: "Authentication failure" and no login prompt in tty1-tty6 [SOLVED]

By trial and error and a little luck, I was able to figure it out: My /etc/inittab was messed up.

I changed this:

1:2345:respawn:/bin/login -f user </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>&1
2:23:respawn:/bin/login -f user </dev/tty2 >/dev/tty2 2>&1
3:23:respawn:/bin/login -f user </dev/tty3 >/dev/tty3 2>&1
4:23:respawn:/bin/login -f user </dev/tty4 >/dev/tty4 2>&1
5:23:respawn:/bin/login -f user </dev/tty5 >/dev/tty5 2>&1
6:23:respawn:/bin/login -f user </dev/tty6 >/dev/tty6 2>&1

...to this:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6

...and the problem went away. I don't know much about /etc/inittab so it was just a combination of duck-ducking and comparing the inittab in ascii to the one I had in my devuan jessie partition.

Last edited by GNUser (2018-03-02 13:17:09)