crontab error : Bad item passed to pam_*_item() You (root) are not allowed to access to (crontab) because of pam configuration

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

"crontab -l" command fails with the following error.

[root@server1 ~]# crontab -l

Bad item passed to pam_*_item()
You (root) are not allowed to access to (crontab) because of pam configuration.
  • /var/log/cron
May 31 04:19:20 server1 crond[27677]: Bad item passed to pam_*_item()
May 31 04:19:20 server1 crond[27677]: CRON (root) ERROR: failed to open PAM security session: Success
May 31 04:19:20 server1 crond[27677]: CRON (root) ERROR: cannot set security context
  • /var/log/secure
May 31 04:19:33 server1 crontab: pam_env(crond:setcred): pam_putenv: delete non-existent entry; mesg n
  • /var/log/messages
May 31 04:19:33 server1 crontab: Bad item passed to pam_*_item()

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4,5,6

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