ERROR: "XCOMU0287E Error setting remote userid: Verify login failed"

Products

• XCOM Data Transport
• XCOM Data Transport - Linux PC

Issue/Introduction

Transfers are failing with message "XCOMU0287E Error setting remote user id: Verify login failed." when a transfer is initiated from a remote system to Linux. XCOM for Linux is configured to use PAM-based authentication instead of the native mechanism for the Linux server. In addition to using Centrify.

Environment

• XCOM™ Data Transport® for Linux PC
• PAM
• Centrify

Cause

The problem started after some IP swapping was done to compute nodes on the server that has XCOM installed. 

Resolution

In this case the problem was resolved after reverting to a backup of the xcomauth file that was working prior to the changes on the Linux server. It is not known how or when the xcomauth file was modified. 

One possibility in this scenario that could cause the failure of the transfers is if there is a line like below in the xcomauth file and any change to the system-auth which uses Centrify will impact XCOM.

auth     include     system-auth

The meaning of the "include" from above line:

Unlike the other controls, this does not relate to how the module result is handled. This flag pulls in all lines in the configuration file which match the given parameter and appends them as an argument to the module.

If you want to keep XCOM independent of any of the system-auth changes, make a copy of the working settings of the system-auth and include them into the xcomauth file. Make sure to make proper comments on the lines that include system-auth. This way, future changes to the system-auth file will not impact xcomauth automatically.