system unbootable - libpam.so.0

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 01:13:47PM -0500, Claude Jones wrote:
> 
> No one's responded, so maybe there was too little info. 
> The boot errors say the following:
> error while loading shared libraries: libpam.so.0 cannot open shared object 
> file: no such or directory

libpam.so.0 will be a symlink to libpam.so.<whatever> and that library
is a part of your 'pam' package.  Either you have problems with this
one or a link is missing.  In the later case rerunning ldconfig most
likely should be enough.

> entering the username 
> returns another query for the username

Not unexpected as pam is clearly messed up.

> The machine is unbootable - does anyone have a suggestion given the above 
> addtional info?

You surely can boot into a level 1 (single-user mode).  This should
not use pam at all.  Then you can fix it.  Even bringing a network
up, if you need fresh copies of some packages, should be possible.

In the worst case you can boot "rescue" from CD and use that to
straighten things.

   Michal