#5179 pam_unix(webmin:auth)

[M.T.R]

Hi Jamie,
i know this is an old issue,
but i would be happy to find a workaround to get rid of this:

It happens everytime booting the server:
pam_unix(webmin:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost= user=root

How could i modify the webmin start parameters, to make this not happen everytime?

Thanks for advice

cheers mike

[Matt Wilcox]

I'm getting this and Webmin will not start after a reboot of the server.

service webmin restart

Job for webmin.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status webmin.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

systemctl status webmin.service

webmin.service - LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/webmin; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2018-09-04 14:31:42 BST; 1min 7s ago
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
Process: 3474 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/webmin start (code=exited, status=2)

Sep 04 14:31:40 server14.REDACTED systemd[1]: Starting LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems...
Sep 04 14:31:40 server14.REDACTED perl[3475]: pam_unix(webmin:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost= user=root
Sep 04 14:31:42 server14.REDACTED systemd[1]: webmin.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=2
Sep 04 14:31:42 server14.REDACTED systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: web-based administration interface for Unix systems.
Sep 04 14:31:42 server14.REDACTED systemd[1]: webmin.service: Unit entered failed state.
Sep 04 14:31:42 server14.REDACTED systemd[1]: webmin.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

[Matt Wilcox]

This error turned out to be a result of a configuration problem when an attempt to get SSL onto a server had failed; leaving webmin with config files expecting an SSL certificate, but no SSL certificate being available.

[Jamie Cameron]

That would explain it!

[M.T.R]

hi jamie,

don't really understand your answer,
cause the other user's statement has nothing to do with my reported problem:

**It happens everytime booting the server:
pam_unix(webmin:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost= user=root

How could i modify the webmin start parameters, to make this not happen everytime?

Thanks for assistance

cheers mike

[Jamie Cameron]

MTR - that happens because on startup Webmin checks if the PAM module is really working and properly configured, by doing a test authentication. You can just ignore that log entry..