[Fwd: RedHat 9.0 login problem]

Have you rigorously checked all library dependencies? libcrypt, for instance?

I only vaguely recall this now, but I think I had a very similar problem when I was trying to do something similar with RH8.0 a while ago. The two things I had to do in order to solve this problem were:

1. check all dependencies of /usr/bin/passwd and copy all those libraries across to the target system. (Yes, I know you're not changing your password; you're trying to log in, but the same libraries are used).
2. (when step 1 proved inadequate!) strace an attempt to change my password on the development system, which showed up a couple more vital libraries that were being loaded explicitly, rather than automatically. Might have been another config file, or maybe a log directory, that had to be created on the target also.