su failing with "su: Authentication failure" using correct password
Issue
- Users cannot escalate to
root
user usingsu
using valid password. - It is possible to login as
root
user directly but not possible to escalate to root usingsu
. - Users cannot use
su
command to switch user getting "su: Authentication failure". - Being
root
you can usesu
to switch to another user, but regular users are not able to runsu
.
RHEL5/6:
[user@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
su: incorrect password
[user@localhost ~]$ su user2
Password:
su: incorrect password
RHEL7/8:
[user@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
su: Authentication failure
[user@localhost ~]$ su user2
Password:
su: Authentication failure
Environment
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
- su
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