Re: setgid: Operation not permitted

[Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com>]

At 07:51 AM 12/29/2003 -0500, chuck gelm net wrote:
>Howdy:
>
>  I broke something on my file server and now I can no longer
>'su' (root) remotely.  When I try I get this error:
>
>setgid: Operation not permitted
>
>  Often I logged on remotely and issued
>
>su
>cd /hde3
>chmod -R 775 *
>chgrp -R users
>
>So that I could 'rw' the files in that directory
>from any of my Windows workstations.
>OBTW, ("/hde3" is /dev/hde3).
>
>  What might I have done and how do I fix it?
>
>  The system is an old amd-k6-266 running
>Slackware-8.0 kernel 2.4.19 configured as a file server
>using nfs and samba.


"What might I have done" is always a tough question to answer. I'm assuming 
a couple of details that you left out, namely that (a) the message you 
quote occurs right after you enter the root password, with nothing in 
between, and (b) the su then fails, leaving you at whatever userid you were 
at before entering the "su" command. Also that the exact command you enter 
is "su" (not, for example, "su -") and that it is entered at a 
normal-looking command prompt.

I'd check these things:

1. In /etc/passwd, is root still group 0?
2. In /etc/group, is group 0 present and named "root"?
3. Are any relevant filesystems misset to be read-only? (If your system 
even has an hde drive, it is unusual in some respect.)
4. Did anything odd get changed in /etc/login.defs?
5. Did anything odd get added to root's profile (/root/.profile, I think)?
6. Did you do any update to the system recently that might have introduced 
a library mismatch with su? (I'm not sure which library has the setgid() 
call, but glibc is likely.)

Finally, have you tried a console login and su? If not, you should, to 
detemine if the problem is connected with the remote aspect of the process. 
If it is, you need to provide more detail about it ... telnet, ssh, rsh, or 
what, for example? Might there be restrictions on what the system will 
permit that login method to do? You mention that the system runs nfs and 
samba ... do they play any obvious role in what you are doing (e.g., is 
either relevant home directory an nfs share)?



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