samba - Aug 1998 - PAM authentication failure?

Howdy:

Can anybody explain why /var/log/messages is filled with the 
following?

Aug 18 09:37:53 rama PAM_pwdb[28483]: 1 authentication failure; 
(uid=0) -> arnold for samba service

Aug 18 09:38:25 rama PAM_pwdb[28494]: (login) session opened for 
user arnold by arnold(uid=0)

The first one happens every time I browse to rama from win95 
Explorer; the second one is from a telnet login (obviously, I'm 
concerned about the former, but not the latter).

Thanks in advance, Steve Arnold


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Stephen L. Arnold                        Senior Systems Engineer
ENSCO Inc.                        email:  arnold.steve@ensco.com
P.O. Box 5488                         www:  http://www.ensco.com
Vandenberg AFB, CA  93437             voice: 805.734.8232 x68838
                                               fax: 805.734.4779
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
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On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Stephen L Arnold wrote:
> Can anybody explain why /var/log/messages is filled with the 
> following?
> 
> Aug 18 09:37:53 rama PAM_pwdb[28483]: 1 authentication failure; 
> (uid=0) -> arnold for samba service
> 
> Aug 18 09:38:25 rama PAM_pwdb[28494]: (login) session opened for 
> user arnold by arnold(uid=0)
> 
> The first one happens every time I browse to rama from win95 
> Explorer; the second one is from a telnet login (obviously, I'm 
> concerned about the former, but not the latter).
You are using Linux with the Pluggable Authentication Module system.
Probably RedHat linux.

You get the messages logged because the client you are using is folding
your password to upper case, so samba is trying once with the uppercased
version of your password (which gives the authenication failure message),
then again with the password it received lowercased, which matches.

I've submitted a patch to change the way that samba interacts with PAM
so that these irritating and irrelevant messages go away.

Charlie Brady - Telstra  |internet: cbrady@ind.tansu.com.au
Network Products         |Snail    : Locked Bag 6581, GPO Sydney 2001 Australia
Platform Technologies    |Physical : Lvl 2, 175 Liverpool St, Sydney 2000
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