Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 10 - INSTALLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 11-05-2007, Installation Manual

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6 If the desktop could not start because of corrupt configuration files, proceed with
Section 51.4.3, “Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails ” (page 924) or
Section 51.4.4, “Login Successful but KDE Desktop Fails” (page 925).
The following are some common reasons why network authentication for a particular
user might fail on a specific machine:
• The user might have entered the wrong password.
• The username exists in the machine's local authentication files and is also provided
by a network authentication system, causing conflicts.
• The home directory exists but is corrupt or unavailable. Perhaps it is write protected
or is on a server that is inaccessible at the moment.
• The user does not have permission to log in to that particular host in the authentica-
tion system.
• The machine has changed hostnames, for whatever reason, and the user does not
have permission to log in to that host.
• The machine cannot reach the authentication server or directory server that contains
that user's information.
• There might be problems with the X Window System authenticating this particular
user, especially if the user's home has been used with another Linux distribution
prior to installing the current one.
To locate the cause of the login failures with network authentication, proceed as follows:
1 Check whether the user remembered his password correctly before you start de-
bugging the whole authentication mechanism.
2 Determine the directory server the machine relies on for authentication and make
sure that it is up and running and properly communicating with the other machines.
3 Determine that the user's username and password work on other machines to
make sure that his authentication data exists and is properly distributed.
4
See if another user can log in to the misbehaving machine. If another user can
log in without difficulty or if
root
can log in, log in and examine the
/var/
Common Problems and Their Solutions 923