obsevations re 3 little issues incl. pamd authentication error

[Anselm Hook]

This is just an observation of three issues or possible bugs in 5.3 stable
amd64:

1) pamd authentication error on reinstall of base on freebsd amd64 5.3

I've noticed that if I install freebsd 5.3 stable amd64 from a cdrom, and
then go to the sysinstall utility and re-install 'base' that ssh, telnet
and other remote login tools stop working.  They allow me to enter my
password but never actually accept the login.  Looking at
/var/log/messages shows 'pam.d authentication error'.

So my guess is that there is something different between the version of
base that is supplied on the 5.3 stable cdrom, and the version of base
that the sysinstall utility tries to fetch.  And that this difference is
possibly something to do with the tools that pam uses.

I've run into this a couple of times - once with my server when it arrived
from the vendor ( would not allow remote login ) and once just now (I had
done a harddrive wipe and re-install of freebsd 5.3 stable amd64 and that
had worked, but then later on attempting to install the source tree I had
accidentally allowed base to be reinstalled and had managed to recreate
the error again).

2) linux binary compat mode does not work as per documentation on amd64
5.3 freebsd on a stock install:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/linuxemu-lbc-install.html

does not work.

going to /usr/ports/emulators/linux_base-8 (or others) succeeds at all
stages except the last - actual installation fails with 'command linux not
found'.

setting linux_enable=yes in rc.conf and rebooting also fails to show the
linux.ko module being loaded ( kldstat does not show it ).

i'd been led to believe it might work on amd64 because various sources
said that 'linux can be built conveniently on amd64 by using the freebsd
ports collection' - for example:

  http://people.freebsd.org/~tjr/linux32.html

perhaps this is because i used the april 30 2005 version of ports linked
directly on the freebsd/ports page rather than one supplied with the
cdrom.

3) /stand/sysinstall refuses to load sources without installing base again

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/kernelconfig-building.html

describes a process by which you can use the 'sysinstall' utility to fetch
the kernel sources so that you can build a custom kernel.  sysinstall
refused to fetch the sources without fetching base, although base was
already present.  fetching base again corrupted the system (as described
in bug 1 above).

I'm just noting these things because they may be bugs and are little
tarpits at the very least.

 - a