26

sudo (Which I have configured to ask for a password) is rejecting my password (as if I mis-typed it) I am absolutely not typing it incorrectly. I have changed the password temporarily to alphabetic characters only, and it looks fine in plaintext, in the same terminal. I have my username configured thus:

myusername ALL=(ALL) ALL

I am using my password, NOT the root password, which are distinct. Just to be sure, I've tried both (even though I know the root password is not what I should use) - neither work.

I have added myself to the group 'wheel' additionally, and included the following line:

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

I'm kind of at the end of my rope here. I don't know what would cause it to act as though it was accepting my password, but then reject it. I have no trouble logging in with the same password, either at terminal shells, or through the X11 login manager.

Ryan
  • 471
  • 1
  • 4
  • 6

4 Answers4

30

Another possible cause is that systemd-homed is not running. Check it's status with

systemctl status systemd-homed

If it says something other than active, use

systemctl start systemd-homed

to start it again. Note that you need superuser privileges in order to run that command. As sudo is not working, you might try logging as root using

su root

and the correct password for root (usually not your regular user).

LukeLR
  • 409
9

Oh what the heck, here was the issue, I guess?

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=142720

pacman -S pambase

fixes it.

Ryan
  • 471
  • 1
  • 4
  • 6
5

I had a similar problem and it looks like it was caused by faillock in my case.

I suppose I simply failed my sudo too many times and that once locked, even being extra-careful wouldn't help.

I had the hint by trying to restart systemd-homed as my user (without sudo) as suggested in an other answer, which gave me the following output:

> systemctl start systemd-homed
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.freedesktop.systemd1.manage-units ====
Authentication is required to start 'systemd-homed.service'.
Authenticating as: vmonteco
Info: The account is locked due to 3 failed logins.
Info: (10 minute left to unlock)
Password:

What was confusing is that sudo didn't issue such hint (while the same command without sudo would pose no problem):

> su vmonteco
Password: 
> sudo su vmonteco
[sudo] password for vmonteco: 
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for vmonteco: 
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for vmonteco: 
sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts
vmonteco
  • 169
-1

You can try upgrading your system packages:

$ su -
$ pacman -Syu