I am now unable to `su -' from user knoppix.
So, I'm trying different things to fix my grub installation and I managed to make my knoppix and windows 2k unbootable.
That was a fine time to discover that I had an incomplete burn of the knoppix CD (I must have given away the good burn I made). So the computer was basically hosed.
First I booted from my win2k installation CD and issued a fixmbr from the recovery console, which got my windows back. And I tried to revocer my knoppix from the broken CD. Bad idea.
When I finally got another good burn made and got my knoppix working again I found that I could no loger successfully su to root while logged in as knoppix. I can still log-in as root.
Also, none of the KDE popup windows that prompt for the root password succeed either, and the checkbox to "keep password" is now missing (like when I try to change the time, or some other root level activity).
I figure that this is a permissions issue, since somehow in the above process all the files on my system managed to get owned by knoppix:knoppix instead of root.
I chowned root:root everything but /home/knoppix. That hasn't helped though. Is there a fix permissions script somewhere that I can use to get this thing working correctly?
Thanks in advance,
--Robert
Re: I am now unable to `su -' from user knoppix.
--Yikes. Once you get global permissions screwed up, you have basically 2 choices:
1. Restore from a backup
2. Reinstall
--Otherwise you'll NEVER get things 100% back to the way they "should" be. Different things in /etc have to be owned by the proper IDs, or they don't work right.
--Trust me on this. Reinstalling in this case is much quicker and less painful than trying to fix permissions for TENS OF THOUSANDS of files.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbivins
So, I'm trying different things to fix my grub installation and I managed to make my knoppix and windows 2k unbootable.
That was a fine time to discover that I had an incomplete burn of the knoppix CD (I must have given away the good burn I made). So the computer was basically hosed.
First I booted from my win2k installation CD and issued a fixmbr from the recovery console, which got my windows back. And I tried to revocer my knoppix from the broken CD. Bad idea.
When I finally got another good burn made and got my knoppix working again I found that I could no loger successfully su to root while logged in as knoppix. I can still log-in as root.
Also, none of the KDE popup windows that prompt for the root password succeed either, and the checkbox to "keep password" is now missing (like when I try to change the time, or some other root level activity).
I figure that this is a permissions issue, since somehow in the above process all the files on my system managed to get owned by knoppix:knoppix instead of root.
I chowned root:root everything but /home/knoppix. That hasn't helped though. Is there a fix permissions script somewhere that I can use to get this thing working correctly?
Thanks in advance,
--Robert
Re: I am now unable to `su -' from user knoppix.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_Bechtel
--Yikes. Once you get global permissions screwed up, you have basically 2 choices:
1. Restore from a backup
2. Reinstall
--Otherwise you'll NEVER get things 100% back to the way they "should" be. Different things in /etc have to be owned by the proper IDs, or they don't work right.
--Trust me on this. Reinstalling in this case is much quicker and less painful than trying to fix permissions for TENS OF THOUSANDS of files.
YIKES! Indeed!
Is there a way to re-install that doesn't blow away all the settings that I've spent hours setting? Not to mention all the apps I've installed since then.
Hmmm . . . not good.
Or, can I just pull all the /etc, /opt, /bin, /lib, /sbin, and /var from the CD or something?
Thanks,
--Robert
Re: I am now unable to `su -' from user knoppix.
--I wouldn't mess around with it too much, if you don't want a subtly-broken system.
--If you want, you could tar up /etc and your /home dir somewhere and then run a 'diff' on the files afterward. But really, there's no easy way around it - even if you do that, you'll spend hours hand-editing things anyway.
--The only "good" way that I know of to recover fully from a situation like this, is to reinstall... Then BACKUP frequently. Backup when you have it running the way you like it; backup (at least partially) again when you tweak something and get good results; backup *yet again* right before you do apt-get upgrade or delete packages. And by all means, at **least** do a *weekly* full backup. (Sunday nights are good for this, as a suggestion.)
--With hard drive sizes going 'way beyond 40GB these days, a 2nd HD is pretty much essential. My rule of thumb is to have HD #2 == (or greater than) the HD that I use for OS and data; so there's plenty of room for Linux installs, cd-temp areas, and backup space. (My main 80GB HD is a Maxtor; the 2nd HD is an 80GB Seagate.)
--I usually keep at least 2 previous iterations of backup tarballs, unless the filesize is 8GB or more. Note - it might be worth considering for you to buy a dual-format DVD-burner now. The prices are coming down to $100 or less these days.
--In addition, I have a special 'bkpcrit' script which saves the absolutely-critical files to a 100MB Zip disk; it should show up on the board if you do a search for it.
--Yes, reinstalling is painful; but you're better off doing it in the long run, rather than having something break strangely later on because the permissions / ownership went bozotic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbivins
YIKES! Indeed!
Is there a way to re-install that doesn't blow away all the settings that I've spent hours setting? Not to mention all the apps I've installed since then.
Hmmm . . . not good.
Or, can I just pull all the /etc, /opt, /bin, /lib, /sbin, and /var from the CD or something?
Thanks,
--Robert
Re: I am now unable to `su -' from user knoppix.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbivins
Not to mention all the apps I've installed since then.
Thanks,
--Robert
If dpkg is still working then you can get the list of installed packages by dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt save the file and when you reinstall use dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt and then dselect update followed by apt-get deslect-upgrade.
