[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: passwords broken



On Fri, Jun 09, 2000 at 04:23:17PM -0400, Brian Stults wrote:
> Please, please help me.
> 
> Sometime, overnight my work computer seized up.  When I got to work, I
> had a blank screen and nothing would change it.  So I stopped and
> started the computer, and when it came back up I got the usual fsck for
> an uncleanly umounted file system.  I was required to give the root
> password and run e2fsck manually, which I did.  I usually just respond
> "yes" to all the fixes.  That's probably not advisable, but I'm the only
> user, so I'm only hurting myself.  Anyway, among the corrupted files
> were apparently /etc/fstab, /etc/passwd, and /etc/shadow, becuase when I
> tried to reboot my computer, those files were missing.  I was able to
> rebuild fstab by booting up with a rescue floppy.  The only thing I
> could think to do to replace /etc/password and /etc/shadow was to copy
> the files from my home computer which has the exact same users and the
> exact same directory structure, but that did not work.  When I boot up,
> everything appears fine but I can't login.  No matter what I try, it
> says the login is incorrect.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

look in /lost+found  your missing files are probably there, though it
is likly the filenames were lost and you having things like #13413.
look through and see what you can figure out.  you can probably
restore your password and shadow files from there.  but you may also
have lost critical libraries or binaries that are also causing
brokeness.  

if there is only a handfull of files there you should be able to
recover fairly easy, use strings on binaries to try and figure out
what they are.  use `file' before `cat' so you don't wreck your login
by catting a binary by accident.  

if there are hundreds or more files there you will probably just end
up reinstalling, last time i had massive filesystem corruption due to
kernel 2.2.13 i lost nearly 50% of the files on the / filesystem (all
of /etc /bin and /sbin) all filenames were lost as well.... big mess,
too much work to fix.  

-- 
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

Attachment: pgpbQfLmVTae8.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Reply to: