Mark Hobley wrote:
> In alt.os.linux.gentoo jayjwa <jayjwa@vdrl.ath.cx.invalid> wrote:
>
>> inetd's done its part ... looks like telnetd's passed control to login
>> when it hits trouble.
>
> Ok.
>
>> Are you sure your telnetd can run as an unpriv. user?
>
> I don't know. I just tried this as root in inetd.conf and the telnet
> daemon works fine, and I can login.
>
> Looking at my (working) Debian computers, the telnetd daemon is run as
> an unprivileged user. I thought I was using the same telnetd package.
> The man pages certainly match, beginning:
>
> TELNETD(8) BSD System Manager's Manual TELNETD(8)
>
> NAME
> telnetd -- DARPA telnet protocol server
>
>> I'd test with setting a real path for the home dir., and running as
>> root. See if it clears up, and decide from there what to do.
>
> Running as root works. It is weird that I don't have to do that in
> Debian.
>
> Mark.
>
Puzzles me too.


Nether telnetd nor login are suid root on my system..though inetd is
running as root.

And my login process is also root. Odd that since its spawned by
telnetd, which isn't..

Debian sarge..

Ahh. A probe into the guts of the telnetd program reveals
"/usr/lib/telnetlogin:" which IS SUID root, and is called by telnetd.

ls -l /usr/lib/telnetlogin
-rwsr-xr-- 1 root telnetd 6032 2005-10-09 17:24 /usr/lib/telnetlogin


So that's something to check on the OP's system, if thats not SUID root,
it wont be able to work properly.