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Re: runlevels [was: fried(?) computer hangs on boot]



On Wed, May 28, 2003 at 10:34:46AM -0400, Vikki Roemer wrote:
> 
> Well, I would, but I can't log in.  I have it booting up now, I get a 
> login prompt, it'll accept my username, but it hangs trying to 
> authenticate my password.  Do you think this is a problem with login (I 
> think that's the program), or whatever file the passwords are stored in? 
> The passwords aren't stored in /etc/passwd because they're encrypted-- 
> I know that much.  And I tried logging in as both root and as a normal 
> user and both logins are hung.

I believe it is possible to replace the getty invocations in
/etc/inittab with invocations of bash, to give you a vc which
automatically executes a root shell without having to do any password
authentication. I have never actually tried this, but I can't see any
reason to think it wouldn't work.

You can use pwck to verify the integrity of your password files. If
they're OK it appears that login depends on libpam-modules, libpam0g
and libc6, giving you four things to check / reinstall... 

Might be a good idea, for safety, to boot off an install disk /
Knoppix or something, unpack the libc6 .deb by hand, and diff it
against the possibly-damaged files on your HD... corruption in some
rarely-used function could wreak havoc!

-- 
Pigeon

Be kind to pigeons
Get my GPG key here: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x21C61F7F

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