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

Re: Hardware



Chris Lale wrote:

[...]

William Roca wrote:

I have done everything you told me, and I have not been able to get
into Linux. In case this may help, at the end I get this
message:authentication token lock busy. Also, root@(none):/# and
debian: #.

I am tired. Don't know what to do.


Hello William.

I am afraid this is getting a bit beyond me. I did a Google search for
your error

authentication token lock busy error

It seems to be something to do with PAM, possibly because root (/) is
mounted read-only.

The token lock is normally used to make sure that only one processes
writes to the password file at a time. Otherwise it might end up in an
inconsistent state which could screw up the whole system. After using
the init=/bin/bash trick, however, it is indeed just a symptom of not
being able to write to the root partition. I tried it again with my
laptop and I get the same error unless I issue the two mount commands
first. Maybe it will clear things up if William tries it again and tells
us what messages he gets when he attempts to remount /. Maybe he just
made a simple typo during his first attempt, like overlooking the "/" at
the end of the command or mixing it up with a "\".

I don't know how it got into this state. Did you install from official
CD/DVDs? If you used Knoppix or some other live CD, these can cause
problems when used as installers. Is your hardware OK? Sometimes, you
get strange effects when memory starts to fail. Memtest would show this up.

It may be quicker in the long run to re-install. Use the step-by-step
guide at http://newbiedoc.berlios.de/wiki/Installing_Debian_on_a_small_partition
to help you make sensible choices. If you still get problems, I would
look for a hardware fault.

Or try to set an empty root password with Knoppix:

1) Boot Knoppix.

2) Right-click on the desktop icon for the root partition and mount it
with write access.

3) Open a terminal and cd to the mount point of the root partition. I
think this might be /mnt/hda1 or /media/hda1, but it has been a while
since I used Knoppix. This can be checked with the "mount" command which
lists all mounted devices and their mount points. I will assume it is
/mnt/hda1 for what follows.

4) Now, start an editor (e.g. vim or joe, as explained on the NewbieDOC
website) to change /mnt/hda1/etc/shadow. You need to find the line for root:

root:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:12667:0:99999:7:::

The colons ":" are the field separators. The first field is the user
name and the second field, where I put the Xs, holds the password hash.
The rest should not be changed (and will probably look different from my
example). If the second field is empty the user can log in without a
password. So in my case I would change the above line to

root::12667:0:99999:7:::

and save the file.

4a) If there is no /mnt/hda1/etc/shadow file then this editing has to be
done in /mnt/hda1/etc/password. The line will look a bit different, but
also here the second field has to be emptied without changing any of the
others. (Not having /etc/shadow is a security risk, but that would
probably be something to worry about later.)

5) Quit Knoppix and reboot normally from the harddrive. root can log on
without a password and set a new one with the "passwd" command.


Regards,
           Florian



Reply to: