Bug 740

Summary: sudo error in AIX
Product: Sudo Reporter: surendra swamy <margamswamy8839>
Component: VisudoAssignee: Todd C. Miller <Todd.Miller>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: high CC: tom.callahan
Priority: low    
Version: 1.8.15   
Hardware: PC   
OS: AIX   

Description surendra swamy 2016-03-19 23:46:51 MDT
Hi,

I am getting the below error when i execute the sudo command

"sudo: unable to initialize PAM: A file or directory in the path name does not exist."
Comment 1 Todd C. Miller 2016-03-20 14:31:43 MDT
Sudo uses the /etc/security/login.cfg file to determine whether to use PAM or AIX authentication.  If the usw stanza in /etc/security/login.cfg has the line:

auth_type = PAM_AUTH

sudo will use PAM authentication.  Can you check /etc/security/login.cfg to see what auth_type is set to?  Also, do you have an /etc/pam.conf file?
Comment 2 Todd C. Miller 2016-03-23 10:58:13 MDT
The following commit may fix this:
https://www.sudo.ws/repos/sudo/rev/cdbe432c465c

You can find AIX 5.3 packages built with this patch at:
ftp://ftp.sudo.ws/pub/millert/sudo/sudo-1.8.16-2.aix53.rpm
ftp://ftp.sudo.ws/pub/millert/sudo/sudo.1.8.16.1.aix53.bff.gz

If you could try one of those and report back it would be helpful.
Comment 3 Todd C. Miller 2016-06-18 06:01:05 MDT
Fixed in sudo 1.8.17 which is now available.
Comment 4 Tom Callahan 2016-11-08 06:22:36 MST
I seem to be having this problem.. and I have tried using version up to and including sudo-1.8.18rc4-1
I think I may be missing something. When I change back login.cfg to STD_AUTH the problem goes away 
...
Sorry, try again.
Sorry, try again.
sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts
Comment 5 Todd C. Miller 2016-11-08 07:47:43 MST
It sounds like you have auth_type set to PAM_AUTH but have a pam configuration error of some kind.  You need a valid entry in /etc/pam.conf either for sudo or OTHER.  For example:

sudo   auth      required      /usr/lib/security/pam_aix
sudo   account   required      /usr/lib/security/pam_aix
sudo   password  required      /usr/lib/security/pam_aix
sudo   session   required      /usr/lib/security/pam_aix