On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 01:29:21PM -0500, Vikki Roemer wrote: > On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 06:30:03AM +0000, Pigeon wrote: > > > > This su problem happened to me, with the additional weirdness that if > > I just hit return when su prompted for a password - ie. gave it NO > > password - it would su me to root! > > Nope, I don't have that. > > > > > Some helpful person on the list whose name I have unfortunately > > forgotten suggested that I check for corrupted /etc/passwd and > > /etc/shadow, and that was it sorted. > > Sorted? What do you mean?
Sorted - sorted out, fixed, OK, working, back up, back in action > But the files don't look corrupted. It may be subtle. My situation may not be the same as yours; the file had got corrupted when I nuked my system mucking about with shared libraries, and I didn't have shadow passwords turned on. /etc/shadow looked OK to a casual inspection, but in fact it had a different root password from /etc/passwd. Not having shadow passwords, I simply copied /etc/passwd to /etc/shadow and that fixed [sorted :-)] it. Later on, I had some other more minor password-related problem (can't remember what, it was too minor) which I fixed by deleting /etc/shadow entirely and replacing it with a file of zero length. > Though I do want to get rid of some of the entries since I don't need > them anymore (they're from programs that I uninstalled long ago). > Can I edit the file by hand, or will that screw it up? I don't think > I can use linuxconf to get rid of them since they're not showing up in > that program (especially the qmail entries-- there are 6 qmail > entries, but linuxconf is only displaying 1, and yet I don't ever > remember having qmail installed in the first place!). I was just > wondering since some config files cannot be edited by hand or there > will be Dire Consequences. AFAIK if nothing is using those user/group IDs you can delete the relevant lines and you'll be OK. Make sure you backup the original versions though just in case. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
