I have WHM hosted on a virtual-dedicated Linux Enterprise Centos 5 server hosted at iWeb.Now and then my root password will stop working. I will get a red message saying: The login is invalid.The problem is that I know I have the right password. I can login via ssh and change the root password using scripts/chpass root newpassword and that won't solve the problem.I suspected it might have to do with cpHulk brute force protection. So, again via SSH, I reset the brutes and logins MySQL tables. This does not solve the problem.The ONLY way I found to solve the problem is to re-initialize the smart layer on my virtual-dedicated server.
WHM Root Password Stops Working
linux;centos;whm
The problem seems to have been resolved.I was going through the logs and noticed the server was under constant root login attack.I have installed DenyHosts and denied SSH login with passwords. The problem has not happened since then.I was shocked to see how many foreign IP addresses (from Russia, China, etc.) were trying to root login to my server!