Invalid user issue

[Aravind Padmanabhan]

Hi All,

Thanks for the quick responses to my earlier questions — really appreciate it!

I am getting a user authentication issue.

Could you please give some insights on what could be the issue (this is the first time user is trying to login)

 Thank you

From node

[REDACTED_USER@REDACTED_HOST ~]$ iinit
Enter your current iRODS password:
Level 0: Error occurred while authenticating user [REDACTED_USER] [CAT_INVALID_USER: failed to perform request] [ec=-827000]

iuserinfo

[REDACTED_USER@REDACTED_HOST:~]$ iuserinfo [REDACTED_USER]
name: [REDACTED_USER]
id: [REDACTED_ID]
type: rodsuser
zone: [REDACTED_ZONE]
info:
comment:
create time: [REDACTED_TIMESTAMP]: 2023-06-02.16:36:29
modify time: [REDACTED_TIMESTAMP]: 2023-06-02.16:36:29
member of group: [REDACTED_GROUP_1]
member of group: [REDACTED_GROUP_2]
member of group: public

Server logs

Aug  5 16:14:53 [REDACTED_HOST] irodsServer[19311]: {
  "log_category": "api",
  "log_level": "info",
  "log_message": "Error occurred invoking auth plugin operation [CAT_INVALID_USER: rcAuthCheck failed.\n\n] [ec=-827000]",
  "request_api_name": "",
  "request_api_number": 110000,
  "request_api_version": "d",
  "request_client_user": "[REDACTED_USER]",
  "request_host": "[REDACTED_IP]",
  "request_proxy_user": "[REDACTED_USER]",
  "request_release_version": "rods4.3.1",
  "server_host": "[REDACTED_SERVER]",
  "server_pid": 19311,
  "server_timestamp": "2025-08-05T20:14:53.571Z",
  "server_type": "agent",
  "server_zone": "[REDACTED_ZONE]"
}

[Alan King]

Hi,

It is interesting that you were able to execute iuserinfo because that requires being authenticated. Can you please share the client environment which is in use here? Redacting information (in a consistent manner) as you've done in the first email is fine.

Thanks,

Alan

--
--
The Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) - https://irods.org
 
iROD-Chat: http://groups.google.com/group/iROD-Chat
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "iRODS-Chat" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to irod-chat+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/irod-chat/abd23b29-b6f8-4886-841e-d4616a8b9cc0n%40googlegroups.com.

--

Alan King

Senior Software Developer | iRODS Consortium

[Aravind Padmanabhan]

Hi Alan,

Thank you for responding

I was running the iuserinfo in the iCAT server as rodsadmin - Ubuntu 18.04.

The client is Centos 7.9.

Thanks

[Alan King]

Okay, so the iuserinfo invocation was done by some user other than the one attempting to authenticate.

Just thought of something... init was attempting to use native authentication. Is it possible that this user does not have an iRODS password set (that is, for native authentication)? I'm wondering if the lookup of the user in R_USER_PASSWORD failed and that's why CAT_INVALID_USER came back.

Please confirm that the user has an iRODS password. You can look for the user's ID in the R_USER_PASSWORD database table, or just use iadmin moduser to set the user's password.

If your users are supposed to be using PAM authentication and you do not want to set an iRODS password for that reason, the user needs to specify "pam_password" as the irods_authentication_scheme in the irods_environment.json file. Then, iinit will prompt the user for a PAM password rather than an iRODS password.

Hope that helps.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/irod-chat/7aa6e4cc-94fb-4f01-8097-489e29a4daffn%40googlegroups.com.

[Aravind Padmanabhan]

Hi Alan,

I tried to set a new password and login but got the same error.

We are using iRODS auth.

Thanks

[Alan King]

Okay, that is puzzling. Here are some questions to help us get a feel for what may be happening:

- Do any other iRODS users in this zone have this problem, or is it just this particular user?

- Is the user able to authenticate with iRODS from any other hosts, or while connected to any other servers (if applicable)?

- Can a different Linux user authenticate as that iRODS user?

- Have you tried using any other, non-iCommands clients (e.g. python-irodsclient)?

- Do you have access to more than one iRODS zone?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/irod-chat/18c20eb8-4802-43e5-938f-96580a84277en%40googlegroups.com.

[Aravind Padmanabhan]

Hi Alan,

Thank you for looking into this.

Please see inline

- Do any other iRODS users in this zone have this problem, or is it just this particular user?

Just this user, others are all good

- Is the user able to authenticate with iRODS from any other hosts, or while connected to any other servers (if applicable)?

Tried from AlmaLinux release 8.8 with the same error - Level 0: Error occurred while authenticating user [michael.han] [CAT_INVALID_USER: failed to perform request

Other users can connect both centos and Alma

- Can a different Linux user authenticate as that iRODS user?

I just tried under my Linux user - same error - Level 0: Error occurred while authenticating user [michael.han] [CAT_INVALID_USER: failed to perform request

- Have you tried using any other, non-iCommands clients (e.g. python-irodsclient)?

I just tried cyberduck and it's working i was able to uplaod a file under that user as well

- Do you have access to more than one iRODS zone?

No

As the user needs access, i re-created the user with no success.

Finally I noted that the user password had a # as soon as I removed it, it's working!

Thank you for your help

[Alan King]

Oh, that is... not what I was expecting. But, I'm glad you figured that out and were able to get around it.

That is definitely a bug (and possibly even a regression). Can you please file a Bug Report for this issue on GitHub? https://github.com/irods/irods/issues/new We will investigate that and fix it for the next release.

Thanks

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/irod-chat/235e5458-eb14-454b-998a-f828683a127dn%40googlegroups.com.

[Aravind Padmanabhan]

Hi Alan,

Done - https://github.com/irods/irods/issues/8609

Thank you

[Alan King]

Great, thanks for doing that. We will address that issue in an upcoming release.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/irod-chat/922e9205-29c1-4990-8449-06193e23cc7dn%40googlegroups.com.