"conversation with su failed" then "su returned with an error"

[Darby12611]

I dunno What the hell is happening. First, I was trying to fix my clock and adjust it to the proper time, went to the clock, right clicked, and clicked on "adjust date & time", it asked for a password to run as root, everything was fine, then I realized it was wrong again "didn't realize i had it set as 24 hour clock, had it set as 12:58 instead of 23:58), and this time, it just said "conversation with su failed". Then I tried again, after looking online and checking the output of "sudo cat /etc/sudoers". This time it said "su returned with an error". I would love to post the output of "sudo cat /etc/sudoers" here, but now it just says this

darby@KAYA:~$ cat /etc/sudoers
cat: /etc/sudoers: Permission denied
darby@KAYA:~$ sudo cat /etc/sudoers
sudo: timestamp too far in the future: Oct 28 23:58:56 2007
darby@KAYA:~$ sudo cat /etc/sudoers
sudo: timestamp too far in the future: Oct 28 23:58:56 2007
darby@KAYA:~$
Please help!

*edit* An interesting new discovery: When I tried to run "kate /etc/sudoers" as root, I entered the correct password, but it just said "incorrect password".

[dibl]

Re: "conversation with su failed" then "su returned with an error"

Yep, it can happen. Here's some help:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/sudo

[opie]

Re: "conversation with su failed" then "su returned with an error"

I think your problem is that sudo is set up with a timer. After you type it in you can enter additional commands as sudo without entering your password again within the time limit. The problem is that you have changed your clock.
I have had this happen before. It never caused permanent problems with sudo. I would just not run anything root for a bit of time. If the problem has persisted for some time then I would make note of the link dibl gave for fixing it. Reboot and fix your clock in the bios(rather than under ubuntu. If rebooting doesn't solve it you have your notes for dealing with it in recovery mode.

[Darby12611]

Re: "conversation with su failed" then "su returned with an error"

Ok, just booting up today seemed to fix it. I've decided that having the correct time displayed isn't that imprtant. But Is there someway to take sudo off that timer you mentioned?

[opie]

Re: "conversation with su failed" then "su returned with an error"

Just change the time directly in your bios next time you boot.

"But Is there someway to take sudo off that timer you mentioned?"
I've never looked into that. It is very rarely a problem.

[Snowhog]

Re: "conversation with su failed" then "su returned with an error"

In versions of *ubuntu before Gutsy, sudoing has a 'limited life' in which you can execute CLI requiring sudo without having to append sudo to the command. If the hardware clock and system clock are to far out of sync, then I believe the problem described can be accounted for. The following, from a Google search, describes the way Linux 'sees' and 'sets' the time, and, how to correct the hardware clock from within the running system.

Setting UTC or local time

When Linux boots, one of the initialisation scripts will run the /sbin/hwclock program to copy the current hardware clock time to the system clock. hwclock will assume the hardware clock is set to local time unless it is run with the --utc switch. Rather than editing the startup script, under Red Hat Linux you should edit the /etc/sysconfig/clock file and change the ``UTC'' line to either ``UTC=true'' or ``UTC=false'' as appropriate.

Setting the system clock

To set the system clock under Linux, use the date command. As an example, to set the current time and date to July 31, 11:16pm, type ``date 07312316'' (note that the time is given in 24 hour notation). If you wanted to change the year as well, you could type ``date 073123161998''. To set the seconds as well, type ``date 07312316.30'' or ``date 073123161998.30''. To see what Linux thinks the current local time is, run date with no arguments.

Setting the hardware clock

To set the hardware clock, my favourite way is to set the system clock first, and then set the hardware clock to the current system clock by typing ``/sbin/hwclock --systohc'' (or ``/sbin/hwclock --systohc --utc'' if you are keeping the hardware clock in UTC). To see what the hardware clock is currently set to, run hwclock with no arguments. If the hardware clock is in UTC and you want to see the local equivalent, type ``/sbin/hwclock --utc''