On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 22:09:19 -0400, oliver gould <ogould@cs.stevens.edu>
wrote:

> Hello.
> 
> I have just updated kernel / userland.  Now I get the following error
> when opening an xterm:
> 
> utmp_update: Cannot update utmp entry: Resource temporarily unavailable
> utmp_update: Cannot update utmp entry: Undefined error: 0
> [snip - repeated ~10x]
> 
> I am also attempting to su to root in X results in a `permission
> denied', yet logging on as root on the console works fine.
> 
> Furthermore, the process table is full.  There are numerous errant
> processes clogging it:
> 
> 160 ttyp1 I+   0:00.00 utmp_update ver\\000\\000\\000\\000\\000\\000\\000\\000
> [snip - repeated a LOT]
> 
> The configuration is known to be good as of June 11th.
> 
Were you root when you compiled?  Did you use -U?  What does
'ls -l /usr/bin/su' show?

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb