[ale] stupid sys admin tricks

[trey at fastmail.fm (Trey Sizemore)]

On Mon Jun 26, 2006 05:52PM, Robert Karaffa wrote:
> hi folks,
> 	i managed to really fmrkl my Mandriva server.  Here's my confession:
> 
> -i created a new user via Webmin named phoil
> -i had Webmin create phoil's home directory in /usr
> -bad move, because now /usr is phoil's home directory
> -i realized too late that i was fmrkld
> -i tried to move phoil's home directory to /usr/phoil (via Webmin)
> -suddenly, Webmin doesn't work anymore
> -in fact, nothing works anymore
> -this is great, isn't it?  a public self-inflicted flogging (somebody  
> get me some salt water!).
> 
> okay, i'm trying to rescue my server, so I rebooted from a Mandriva  
> disk in "rescue" mode.
> 
> I mounted all my old partitions under /mnt.
> 
> I was able to copy all of the files from /usr/phoil back to /usr, and  
> I tried to chown all of them to root (chown -R root *), but I still  
> cannot login after reboot.  I'm missing something here and I haven't  
> figured it out yet.
> 
> Would anybody be willing to hold my arm up so that I can flog myself  
> some more?
> 
> Would anybody be willing to toss me a clue?
> 
> -Bob K.
> 
> 

What does /var/log/messages (or 'dmesg') say?

-- 
Cheers,
Trey
----
 
Nihilism should commence with oneself.
 
Linux bingo 2.6.16.20-0.12-default i686 GNU/Linux
  6:52pm  up  23:22,  6 users,  load average: 0.11, 0.40, 0.39