> I can't imagine what I've done, but suddenly I find I can no longer
> su from a regular account when I login over a telnet connection.

I was really stumped on this one.  Seems like the more stupid the error,
the harder it is to figure it out.  Thought I'd share this with people
who have had that feeling.

It happened because I mostly used an English 101 keyboard with the machine
in question, so I did not bother to recompile the kernel.  All other
machines use either a Japanese 106 or NEC PC98 keyboard, so I recompile
the kernel to define that keyboard on most of the machines I use.  It turns
out I chose one character for the password where the key position differs
between the keyboards.  I set the password from the console using a Japanese
106 keyboard, but since the kernel was compiled for English 101, the actual
key that got input was not the same as the "picture" on the physical key.
IOW, I intended to enter "+" as pictured on the key, but actually entered
":".  Since the terminal emulator is set for Japanese 106 keyboards, I kept
pressing "+".  As soon as I pressed the [different] key that produces ":",
su succeeded.  (BTW, I have since changed the password :)

henry nelson