Hello.  I'm running unRAID version 4.7 and I do not have a password assigned to the root user account.  I use putty almost daily to connect to my unRAID server to manage media files using the MC utility.  99-percent of the time I can connect as root with no issue whatsoever.  But every now and then when I try to log in as "root" it prompts for a password.

 

Here's a snippet from the syslog:

 

Jun 8 13:31:36 Titan in.telnetd[12288]: connect from 192.168.1.101 (192.168.1.101)
Jun 8 13:31:38 Titan login[12289]: ILLEGAL ROOT LOGIN on `pts/8' from `192.168.1.101'

 

I never assigned a password to the root user account so I'm not sure why this is happening.

 

I can get around this root password prompt by stopping the array and rebooting.  Once I do that, I can once again login as root without a password.  But then the same issue will happen again, usually in a few weeks.

 

I'm the only one who logs into this server so I know nobody is changing the password or messing with config. files.

 

Does anyone know why this is happening?

 

Thanks!

How do you connect? "telnet <unraid ip address>" ?

 

When I first set up unRAID, I didn't have a password, and was using telnet.  WHen I would connect with telnet, it would prompt me for a password.  I would just hit enter, and I believe it'd prompt for a login? I then would type "root" and enter, and it'd let me in.  Is this what's happening to you?

How do you connect? "telnet <unraid ip address>" ?

 

When I first set up unRAID, I didn't have a password, and was using telnet.  WHen I would connect with telnet, it would prompt me for a password.  I would just hit enter, and I believe it'd prompt for a login? I then would type "root" and enter, and it'd let me in.  Is this what's happening to you?

 

I use:  "telnet <ip-address-of-unraid-server>"  or  "telnet 192.168.1.20"

 

I tried hitting <enter> at the password prompt whenever this happens but it still refuses access.  When I reboot the unRAID server I can then connect with "telnet 192.168.1.20" and it lets me in without a password. 

 

This process repeats itself every few weeks for no reason that I could find thus far.

Only thing I can recommend is posting your entire log when this happens.

 

Or start using ssh and see if that works better.

Like many people, my unRAID server is private to my local network and no one here is going to fiddle with it, so I don't bother with a password.

 

I have never been prompted for a password when I login as root.  The only way I have managed to get it to prompt for a password is to mistype 'root'.

I know user accounts, passwords, etc., are case sensitive in Linux and I'm definitely not mistyping "root" when trying to log in.  I thought that may be the problem before so when logging in I carefully typed "root" (lower-case) but still the problem remained until I rebooted.

 

Also, the system generated this alert to the syslog file whenever I tried accessing the root account and it was in one of it's "prompt for a password" moods.  Would the system generate an alert like this if I were mistyping the root user account login?

 

Jun 8 13:31:36 Titan in.telnetd[12288]: connect from 192.168.1.101 (192.168.1.101)
Jun 8 13:31:38 Titan login[12289]: ILLEGAL ROOT LOGIN on `pts/8' from `192.168.1.101'

 

As a test, I tried to login as "ROOT" (upper-case) and the above alert was NOT sent to the syslog file.  Instead, it said someone tried to login as "unknown," as you can see below.  This tells me that an "ILLEGAL ROOT LOGIN" is only reported to syslog when someone does type "root" correctly.

 

Jun 14 13:24:55 Titan in.telnetd[12542]: connect from 192.168.1.101 (192.168.1.101) (Routine)
Jun 14 13:24:59 Titan login[12543]: invalid password for `UNKNOWN'  on `pts/6' from `192.168.1.101' (Logins)

 

It's a very puzzling, intermittent issue.  I'll upload a full syslog file the next time this happens.

 

 

Also post the contents of your flash drive, i.e., ls /boot.

The root password prompt started happening again today so I was able to capture the syslog and some screen shots. 

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

syslog.zip

boot.txt