UID is -1, can't login?

[Joshua ChaitinPollak]

Hi,

I'm having a strange problem with Busybox 1.1.0 and 1.1.3. When my  
system boots, I get the login prompt, I type my username, and then I  
get this error:

login: This applet requires root priviledges!

So I hacked applets/applets.c to add this line:

	if (geteuid() != 0) {
+		fprintf(stderr, "Effective UID = %d, ruid = %d\n", geteuid(), ruid);
		bb_error_msg_and_die("This applet require root priviledges!");
	}

What I get when I run this is:

Soekris login: root
Effective UID = -1, ruid = -1
login: This applet requires root priviledges!

What would cause my uid to be -1???

Thanks for any help you can provide,

-Josh

PS. I don't mean to create a flame war or anything, maybe this has  
been discussed, but as far as I can tell via google,  
"privileges" (without the d) is the proper spelling.

-- 
Joshua ChaitinPollak
Software Engineer
Kiva Systems