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Oracle Linux - Unable to "su" to non-root user

Applies to

Linux x86_64 on Oracle Public Cloud


Symptoms

Unable to  "su - user" from the "opc" user account, getting  error message as below:


[opc@instance] su - user

Password:

su: Authentication failure


The "user" can login to the instance using the password created for the user, so the password is correct.


Cause

Incorrect permissions on /bin/su

# ls -l  /bin/su

-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 50160 Jan 12  2023 /bin/su

# rpm -V util-linux

    .M.......    /usr/bin/su

The “M” indicates that the permissions have been changed.


Solution

The su command is part of the util-linux package, the correct permissions can be set using  the following command:

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