Does your su binary have the right permissions?
	Check: 
	http://www.netbsd.org/FAQ/#problems_becoming_root

		David/absolute

	"Shall I be tempted by the devil thus?"
	"Yes, if the devil tempt you to do good..."

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Harald Bjoroy wrote:

> Hi.
> 
> I am new to NetBSD, but not that new to UNIX. And also; i have read the 
> faq on *BSD system administration AND read the section 4.4.5.2 (this is 
> from the http://cynjut.neonramp.com/complete.faq.html faq) on this topic.
> 
> The topic incorrectly states that the groups are defined in the file 
> /etc/groups (not /etc/group), but that's not important to me.
> 
> The issue is; I can't su root from any user.
> 
> via "vipw" I have added the user "hbadmin", like this
> 
> ...
> hbadmin:*:1010:150:HB AdminUser:/usr/users/hbadmin:/bin/ksh
> ...
> 
> the group file has these interesting lines:
> 
> wheel:*:0:root,harald,gunnar,hbadmin
> ...
> bitcon:*:150:harald,gunnar,hbadmin
> 
> I also have created the home directory.
> 
> The problem started like this:
> 
> I installed NetBSD as best I could using the docu on 
> www.netbsd.org/ftp.netbsd.org, and got the system up & running on the 
> root from the file .../pmax/diskimage/diskimage.gz (or something).
> 
> I ran sysinst after getting some help from Gunnar Helliesen on how to 
> mount the fs rw (the documentation on the pmax ftp site is rotten here; 
> it still reads 1.3_beta even if it is NOT in beta).
> 
> Sysinst insisted on using the one harddrive, so it ran out of disk 
> (really without noticing itself; but thats no problem). 
> 
> The machine has three disks each of about 200 MB, so I decided to make a 
> manual install with a 64 MB root fs, 64 MB swap, /var mounted as the rest 
> of this disk, and a whole disk for /usr. The disk I first installed on is 
> still intact and booting the "diskimage.gz" root.
> 
> NB! With the original boot disk, I can su root without problems.
> 
> I copied most of the system (step-by-step to get to know NetBSD) to the 
> new boot-disk. The only important thing I changed was the fstab file. I 
> copied MAKEDEV and ran MAKEDEV all to create the devices; rebooted and 
> after a couple of tries everything seemed to work.
> 
> But; as the subject says - I can't su root. I added another user (as 
> described above) to check if I had to remake a password-database; but no 
> luck; I still can't su root!
> 
> I tried to delete all password files except "master.passwd", and all the 
> other files was rebuilt -> no success.
> 
> I get the same "Sorry" if I try on the console as in a telnet session. 
> The message on the console is:
> <time> <machine-name> su: BAD SU <username> to root on <terminal>
> 
> 
> I need help; please.
> 
> Harald Bjoroy.
>