My thanks to all who responded (including Thomas Shemanske via private notes) to my messages (the first one appears to have arrived after the second, at least here) about the RPC services. The notes came from different accounts as I scrambled about trying to get outside my LAN.
As mentioned by several, the problem turned out to be /etc/services, which was overwritten somehow by /lib/security/pam_userdb.so (identical sizes/dates and diff gave a blank, but different inodes). A backup copy of services worked, but I am going to look at the suggestion that other critical files may be overwritten. The first note I tried to send on this included a description about the overwriting of /etc/issue as well. This I also fixed, but I wonder if the problems involve a rogue script somewhere in a .deb package. I'd like to file a bug against it, but don't know what eveidence to look for if this is indeed the problem. I'm still suspicious of pam. Does anyone have a suggestion about that? Again, I appreciate the fast help! Kenward ps. copied to the other thread, too. -- In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be _teachers_ and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. - Lee Iacocca -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
