Cannot su in to user accounts. Error "No such file or directory"

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (All versions)
  • su

Issue

  • su as root user accounts and it failed with the error below :

    [datacenter@localhost log]$ su - root
Password:: No such file or directory

  • same error occurs if try to su as user x.

    [datacenter@localhost log]$ su - x
Password:
: No such file or directory

  • Not even able to ssh as the user root.

Resolution

This issue happen because customer edited the /etc/passwd from a Window environment.
Noticed /etc/passwd file had DOS line endings.

For example when we use vi editor to open /etc/passwd file following were noticed :

# vi /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash^M

The ^M should not be there and is likely introduced by editing on a Windows platform (although there could be other explanations).

  • dos2unix remove ^M at the end of each line in /etc/passwd file:
# dos2unix /etc/passwd

Root Cause

Attempting to edit Red Hat configuration lines from Windows add ^M at end of line.
Windows line ending characters are different to linux line ending characters.

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