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Date:      Wed, 8 May 1996 08:23:02 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Branson Matheson <branson@longstreet.larc.nasa.gov>
To:        dbrockus@m1.sprynet.com (Test Account)
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org (FreeBSD Questions)
Subject:   Re: Please Help ... I am locked out of a FreeBSD machine
Message-ID:  <199605081223.IAA24629@longstreet.larc.nasa.gov>
In-Reply-To: <199605072243.PAA09812@m1.sprynet.com> from "Test Account" at May 8, 96 06:06:08 pm

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> In /temp as root,  I typed the following ...
> 
> chown -R test .*

 OOps... I think you forgot that when you are saying .* you are
actually saying to include things like '.' and, more in your case,
'..'. Which is the directory above temp, which then included every
thing in that directory.. and hance down your file system. If you want
to just get dotfiles and be recursive, do somthing like this:

chmod 644 -R .??* 

 the '?'s will require two characters in the file name.. not just one
which very effectively skips '.' and '..'.

> 
> How can I fix this problem?

 Two suggestions... One if you have good backups ( you DO have good
backups ;-), boot from a floppy, and run a restore from your tapes.

 Other suggestion is to boot from a floppy, copy off your
/etc/ directory , and re-install your system. Finding all the files
and changing them to the proper ownerships and permissions is a real
PITA, I have tried this before by writing a perl script that compares
to the mounted 'filesystem' cdrom and makes the changes... but this is
slow and not garuenteed to fix all the problems as in configuring the
system you tend to make lots of changes.

 In both instances you will probably need the 'fixit' floppy to have
available all the various tools necessary.


 Good luck 

 -branson

-- 
========================================================================
branson matheson    |     branson@widomaker.com
Ferguson SysAdmin   |      http://widomaker.com/~branson



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