Josh Hope <otaku@unixborg.net> typed:
:Hey David...do you or did you ever frequent the NetBSD/mac68k list? Your 
:name sounds familar...
:>	There might be incorrect permissions on /, /etc, /bin, dev, or
:>	some appropriate file beneath.
:>	You might want to ktrace a 'su' to a user to see on what it fails.
:The kdump showed that the permission denied error comes upon trying to 
:get into the home directory. But this makes no sense! I'm looking at the 
:directory right now and it shows that its permissions are "drwxr-xr-x" 
:and that the group "otaku:wheel" owns it (this is all as it should be). 
:*What* could be hindering the action of su trying to access the 
:/home/otaku dir?
:
:The /home dir has the same permissions but is owned by root:wheel. Ditto 
:for the / directory (someone suggested checking this).

/home is a mount, yes?  Unmount /home, then check the /home permissions
on the / partition.  How did you lose your password files?  Also, have
you run
% /usr/sbin/pwd_mkdb /etc/master.passwd
or are you using /usr/sbin/vipw to regenerate your /etc/pwd.db & /etc/spwd.db
files?

Regards,
-- 
Geoff Wing   <gcw@pobox.com>            Mobile : (Australia) 0412 162 441
Work URL: http://www.primenet.com.au/   Ego URL: http://pobox.com/~gcw/