Just fixed the problem... grr, I've seen similar things before, so I should have known. The special passwordless user didn't have an entry in the shadow file. The fact that that user has an AFS home directory and root doesn't was only a red herring. Thanks, Wes -- http://www.woahnelly.net/~wes/ OpenPGP key = 0xA5CA6644 fingerprint = FDE5 21D8 9D8B 386F 128F DF52 3F52 D582 A5CA 6644