Tuesday, November 9, 2010

PAM LDAP error: unexpected return value 4?

Are you seeing this error in your logs, along with an inability to log in?

Nov 9 15:05:08 leoger sshd[41524]: in _openpam_check_error_code(): pam_sm_acct_mgmt(): unexpected return value 4
Nov 9 15:05:08 leoger kernel: Nov 9 15:05:08 leoger sshd[41524]: in _openpam_check_error_code(): pam_sm_acct_mgmt(): unexpected return value 4

I did, and I figured out that the problem was caused by having changed my system hostname in config files and DNS, without actually having changed the hostname of the server. Note, the hostname must also be resolvable, either by DNS or /etc/hosts.