I am running AIX 5.1.
As a non-root user, I am not able to ftp to any machine. I get the
error:

Connected to <remote-machine>
220 <remote-machine> FTP Server (...) ready.
ftp: get_auth_methods() failed 5
Permission denied

I can telnet,rsh etc from the box.
I can ftp from the box as the root user.

If I run lsauthent as non-root user, it returns nothing.
If I run it as root user it returns:
Standard Aix

I think that is the cause of my problem - why is there no
authentication method set up for non-root users?

I don't know what other information I should provide for this problem.
The /etc/security/user file has auth1 set to SYSTEM which is not
overridden for the non-root user. There is no $HOME/.netrc files
present. I have another box running the same version of AIX and ftp
works fine for that. However, on that machine lsauthent returns
"Standard Aix" when run by a non-root user.

Any help greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Paul

In article <2b9e76b9.0405280843.7b238382@posting.google.com >, pdg5001@yahoo.co.uk (Paul Smith) writes:
> I am running AIX 5.1.
> As a non-root user, I am not able to ftp to any machine. I get the
> error:
>
> Connected to <remote-machine>
> 220 <remote-machine> FTP Server (...) ready.
> ftp: get_auth_methods() failed 5
> Permission denied

Check that /usr/bin/ftp is SUID to root. That's required on AIX.

When something works when you're running as root, but not when you're
running as any other user, it's likely a permissions issue. And
indeed that's what ftp is telling you.

You could probably trace ftp's execution to find out just where it's
failing, but I'd check /usr/bin/ftp's mode first.

This was discussed back in November 2002, BTW - Google comp.unix.aix
for "get_auth_methods" if you're curious.

--
Michael Wojcik michael.wojcik@microfocus.com

The way things were, were the way things were, and they stayed that way
because they had always been that way. -- Jon Osborne

Sorry, should have mentioned that I saw the other postings and have
already checked that. /usr/bin/ftp is owned by root and has the setuid
bit set.

FTP-ing as a non-root user was working fine before a reboot of the
machine. Does anyone have any other ideas as to what may be causing
the problem?

Thanks,
Paul

Paul Smith wrote:
> I am running AIX 5.1.
> As a non-root user, I am not able to ftp to any machine. I get the
> error:
>
> Connected to <remote-machine>
> 220 <remote-machine> FTP Server (...) ready.
> ftp: get_auth_methods() failed 5
> Permission denied
>
> I can telnet,rsh etc from the box.
> I can ftp from the box as the root user.
>
> If I run lsauthent as non-root user, it returns nothing.
> If I run it as root user it returns:
> Standard Aix
>
> I think that is the cause of my problem - why is there no
> authentication method set up for non-root users?
>
> I don't know what other information I should provide for this problem.
> The /etc/security/user file has auth1 set to SYSTEM which is not
> overridden for the non-root user. There is no $HOME/.netrc files
> present. I have another box running the same version of AIX and ftp
> works fine for that. However, on that machine lsauthent returns
> "Standard Aix" when run by a non-root user.
>
> Any help greatly appreciated.
> Cheers,
> Paul

tried running
chauthent -std
and the failing node as root again?

you must fix the problem that lsauthent does not return anything for
non-root users