unable to login to buildroot

Hi all,
i built a jffs2 filesystem by using make at91sam9261ek_config for buildroot.2010.02 . everything went fine
but im unable to login on to my target board

when i type root and press enter
it is redirecting me back to the login

and when i press any other name , it asks for password but again come back to login when i press enter



"Welcome to Buildroot

buildroot login: root


Welcome to Buildroot

buildroot login: ravi
Password:


Welcome to Buildroot

buildroot login: "


below is my /etc/inittab file any idea what might be wrong?

# /etc/inittab
#
# Copyright (C) 2001 Erik Andersen <andersen@codepoet.org>
#
# Note: BusyBox init doesn't support runlevels. The runlevels field is
# completely ignored by BusyBox init. If you want runlevels, use
# sysvinit.
#
# Format for each entry: <id>:<runlevels>:<action>:<process>
#
# id == tty to run on, or empty for /dev/console
# runlevels == ignored
# action == one of sysinit, respawn, askfirst, wait, and once
# process == program to run

# Startup the system
null::sysinit:/bin/mount -o remount,rw /
null::sysinit:/bin/mount -t proc proc /proc
null::sysinit:/bin/mount -a
null::sysinit:/bin/hostname -F /etc/hostname
null::sysinit:/sbin/ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1 up
null::sysinit:/sbin/route add -net 127.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 lo
# now run any rc scripts
::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS

# Set up a couple of getty's
#tty1::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
#tty2::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2

# Put a getty on the serial port
ttyS0::respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 115200 vt100


# Logging junk
null::sysinit:/bin/touch /var/log/messages
null::respawn:/sbin/syslogd -n -m 0
null::respawn:/sbin/klogd -n
tty3::respawn:/usr/bin/tail -f /var/log/messages

# Stuff to do for the 3-finger salute
::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/reboot

# Stuff to do before rebooting
null::shutdown:/usr/bin/killall klogd
null::shutdown:/usr/bin/killall syslogd
null::shutdown:/bin/umount -a -r
null::shutdown:/sbin/swapoff -a

any idea what is wrong ? how to debug this ?thanks
warm regards,
Ravi Kulkarni.

Try
mchne@ravi..>su
..> sudo
..> passwd
..> passwd root
..> passwd ravi
..> su passwd
..> sudo passwd
..> su passwd root
..> su passwd ravi
..> sudo passwd root
..> sudo passwd ravi

At DSL I had this outcome:
m@kg.>passwdENTER
>passwd: This applet requires root privileges !
m@kg.>su
>Password:ENTER
>su: Authentification failure
>Sorry.
m@kg.>sudo passwd
>Changing password for root
>Enter the new password (minimum of 5, maximum of 8 characters)
>Please use a combination of upper and lower case letters and numbers.
m@kg.>Enter new password:DsL24
>Bad password: too short.
m@kg.>Re-enter new password:DsL24
>Password changed
m@kg.>

AND FOR THE LOGINSCREEN : ADMIN and ROOT -Login has to be enabled and minimum login-ID set from mostly default USERS 1000 down to ROOT 0 at USERS/GROUPS -point in the SystemsSettings-Menu !

dsl can not copy'paste from xterm so I did wrote down to a piece of paper and typed in per hand

Show us your /etc/passwd.

There is a good chance that root shell is wrong, so the system does let you in, tries to run the shell, it crashes or something and you get back to the login prompt.

Thanks for your reply . But the problem was in kernel . i had miss config related to console n all. It was not due to /etc/passwd as i suspected initially.
warm regards,
Ravi Kulkarni.