[PLUG] Root login when LDAP server or network is down?

Terry Griffin griffint at pobox.com
Mon Jan 20 17:41:02 UTC 2003


Hello,

I'm playing with LDAP for authentication. I got everything working but found
an unfortunate feature. If the LDAP server goes down or there's a network
outage, it becomes impossible to log in to the client box even with accounts
that are defined in the local /etc/passwd file and not on the LDAP server,
including the root account.

Because of this I actually managed to lock myself out of my test box. It was
an LDAP server using itself for authentication. I shut down the server
software to change some settings. I logged out for some reason and then
couldn't get back in. I had to reboot to single user mode in order to recover.
This could be a nasty hazard for a remotely administered box.

Anyone know a way around this? I'd like root login not to depend on being
able to make a connection to the LDAP server.

Terry





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