Re: System Dorked -- Help!
Hi,
> Tried appending "single" to other commands.
Is this LILO related ? (Or what other commands, exactly ?)
It is not easy to imagine what you see and try.
> Took my root password which implies my users and
> passwords are intact!
The recognition of user and password relies on a very small
part of the system. When i was younger, it was file /etc/passwd.
The file still exists, but i would have to start research
whether it still is the master and not some copy of some
other user id data base.
> Anything higher-level I tried to do there segfaulted.
This is not explainable by some missing files.
A SIGSEGV happens in the CPU and needs a bad memory address
to be used by a program for data access.
Causes i can imagine:
- Damaged program or library files.
Since everything fails, it would probably be some central
library like libc.
- Loading and executing of libraries for another operating system
or CPU architecture. Maybe the guards which normally prevent
mismatch produce it by themselves.
- Defective hardware.
Bad RAM, CPU, or mainboard are known to cause SIGSEGV for
no software reason. But typically that either makes everything
impossible or happens only under heavy load.
Selective and reliable failure is rather not hardware style.
Did i get it right that Live Linuxes do work properly on
the machine in question ?
Have a nice day :)
Thomas
Reply to: