I am having a problem using applications in KDE that need root access. When a program such as "MandrakeUpdate" asks for root's password, I enter it correctly, but authentication fails.

The only thing that is printed in auth.log and messages is:

Sep 12 19:05:21 cpe-066-061-097-149 su(pam_unix)[2967]: session opened for user root by (uid=501)
Sep 12 19:05:21 cpe-066-061-097-149 su(pam_unix)[2967]: session closed for user root

I can su to root with my current password and run these apps, so I know I am using the correct password!

Mandrake 9.1
KDE 3.1.0
2.4.21-0.13mdk #1 Fri Mar 14 15:08:06 EST 2003 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux

Anything else??

Thanks,

I had a smilar problem - when I created the pw I used a mix of capital and lower case letters. One time I created the capital letters using the caps lock key - they were recognised as lower case. 2 suggestions: the first is to variations on your password (make sure that if you use a laptop num lock is off) and try typing it in plain text into a console first to see that it looks how you remember it. Secondly, with your boot disk, boot into linux single and change the root password. I can't recall exactly how to do it, but a search for linux single on this forum should come up with it.