7 Jun
2009
7 Jun
'09
4:18 p.m.
Hi folks, hopefully you can help me solve this issue by means other than
asking Andy to reprovision my VPS. Failing that hopefully you'll get a
chuckle at my 'maintainance whilst too tiered' story.
I issued "sudo chmod og= .*" whilst in /etc/skel intending to change the
permissions on the three dot files in there. It changed the permissions
on /etc instead. Now any sudo xxx command results in "sudo: can't open
/etc/sudoers: Permission denied".
I can't login as root - the account has no password set.
I can't do a "sudo passwd" to set the root password.
I can't do a "sudo chmod" on the /etc/sudoers file.
Any ideas on what to do?
4:40 p.m.
I don't know what distro you're running, but you should be able to boot
into single user mode to set the root password. While in single user
mode, you might be able to fix some/all of the file permissions as well.
Paul
Robert Leverington wrote:
Hi,
2009/6/7 Robert Gauld <bitfolklist(a)robertgauld.co.uk>uk>:
Any ideas on what to do?
Andy should be able to manually edit the filesystem for you if you
open a support request.
Robert
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8 Jun
8 Jun
9:25 a.m.
Hi,
On Sun, Jun 07, 2009 at 05:19:08PM +0100, Robert Leverington wrote:
Of
course not. Everyone knows you can't have your kayak and heat it.
-- James Fidell
2009/6/7 Robert Gauld
<bitfolklist(a)robertgauld.co.uk>uk>:
Andy prefers to make the rescue environment work in this instance,
so have done.
BTW this sort of failure mode (breaking sudo) is something I dislike
about Ubuntu's stance of not having a root password. sudo will also
break if you screw up the permissions on /var or /var/run.
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Any ideas on what to do?
Andy should be able to manually edit the filesystem for you if you
open a support request. I have just
recently purchased a Feathercraft Big Kahuna kayak
does it have a heater? 
10:03 a.m.
New subject: Please say I've got an option other than a reprovision
Andy Smith (andy(a)bitfolk.com) wrote:
On Sun, Jun 07, 2009 at 05:19:08PM +0100, Robert
Leverington wrote:
Any reason why you can't just run 'sudo passwd' straight after every
fresh install of Ubuntu? I'm 99% sure that's what I did (it's been a
while though).
2009/6/7 Robert Gauld
<bitfolklist(a)robertgauld.co.uk>uk>:
Andy prefers to make the rescue environment work in this instance,
so have done.
BTW this sort of failure mode (breaking sudo) is something I dislike
about Ubuntu's stance of not having a root password. sudo will also
break if you screw up the permissions on /var or /var/run. Any ideas on what to do?
Andy should be able to manually edit the filesystem for you if you
open a support request. 
7:32 p.m.
Alan Pope wrote:
2009/6/8 Adam Spiers <adam(a)adamspiers.org>rg>:
Indeed I had not, since rectified on both VPSes I have.
Also it was a simple case of using the recovery console to reset
permissions on /etc, and thankfully nothing beneath it.
Any reason why you can't just run 'sudo
passwd' straight after every
fresh install of Ubuntu? I'm 99% sure that's what I did (it's been a
while though).
You can.
The OP didn't.
Cheers,
Al.
10:14 a.m.
New subject: Please say I've got an option other than a reprovision
Hi Adam,
On Mon, Jun 08, 2009 at 11:03:47AM +0100, Adam Spiers wrote:
Andy Smith (andy(a)bitfolk.com) wrote:
Ubuntu says bad things might happen and hints that it's unsupported:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo#root%20account
So I don't do it during the install process on Ubuntu installs.
I still do it on Ubuntu machines I administer, for the reasons
above.
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
"Greatness sits upon my shoulders as the dog urinates upon the pavement -
with naturalness and ease and some offence to passers-by."
-- The League Against Tedium
BTW this sort of failure mode (breaking sudo) is
something I dislike
about Ubuntu's stance of not having a root password. sudo will also
break if you screw up the permissions on /var or /var/run.
Any reason why you can't just run 'sudo passwd' straight after every
fresh install of Ubuntu? I'm 99% sure that's what I did (it's been a
while though). 
12:15 p.m.
New subject: Please say I've got an option other than a reprovision
On Mon, Jun 08, 2009 at 10:14:24AM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:
Hi Adam,
On Mon, Jun 08, 2009 at 11:03:47AM +0100, Adam Spiers wrote:
Interesting page, thanks for the link.
Based on what I've seen on this list, it looks like most of your
customers are experienced administrators who are well aware of the
dangers of root. I don't believe there is anything special about
Ubuntu that makes direct root access any more dangerous than on other
distros; it's just that Ubuntu is the distro most often used by Linux
newbies, so in that light their sudo-based approach makes sense.
The thing which interests me most on that page is under the
"Misconceptions" section:
I won't be able to enter single-user mode!
* The sulogin program in Ubuntu is patched to handle the default
case of a locked root password
This doesn't explain what happens if your root filesystem is hosed
badly enough that it requires a manual fsck before it can be mounted
read/write. In that case it always prompts for a root password,
right? How are Ubuntu users expected to deal with that?
(Incidentally I'd never thought about this before, but I'm guessing
that mkinitrd mirrors /etc/shadow into the initrd to avoid a catch 22
here?)
Andy Smith (andy(a)bitfolk.com) wrote:
Ubuntu says bad things might happen and hints that it's unsupported:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo#root%20account BTW this sort of failure mode (breaking sudo) is
something I dislike
about Ubuntu's stance of not having a root password. sudo will also
break if you screw up the permissions on /var or /var/run.
Any reason why you can't just run 'sudo passwd' straight after every
fresh install of Ubuntu? I'm 99% sure that's what I did (it's been a
while though).
12:36 p.m.
New subject: Ubuntu no root password (Was Re: Please say I've got an option other than a reprovision)
Hi Adam,
On Mon, Jun 08, 2009 at 01:15:57PM +0100, Adam Spiers wrote:
Based on what I've seen on this list, it looks
like most of your
customers are experienced administrators who are well aware of the
dangers of root. I don't believe there is anything special about
Ubuntu that makes direct root access any more dangerous than on other
distros; it's just that Ubuntu is the distro most often used by Linux
newbies, so in that light their sudo-based approach makes sense.
Well, I did used to treat Ubuntu the same as Debian and just provide
the root password (encrypted if requested), but several people
castigated me and pointed me at that page. Conversely since I
changed to doing things "the Ubuntu way," two people have praised me
for it.
So even though I don't agree with it, I will go along with what the
distribution recommends. I don't think I can really justify
deviating from that given how strongly Ubuntu recommends this.
The thing which interests me most on that page is
under the
"Misconceptions" section:
I won't be able to enter single-user mode!
* The sulogin program in Ubuntu is patched to handle the default
case of a locked root password
This doesn't explain what happens if your root filesystem is hosed
badly enough that it requires a manual fsck before it can be mounted
read/write. In that case it always prompts for a root password,
right? How are Ubuntu users expected to deal with that?
That is done with sulogin as well isn't it?
(Incidentally I'd never thought about this before,
but I'm guessing
that mkinitrd mirrors /etc/shadow into the initrd to avoid a catch 22
here?)
Don't know about this.
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
<GeorgeWBush> I'm still banned on #ubuntu-uk though. Or should I say,
#ubuntu-anti-trans
10:37 p.m.
Adam said:
This doesn't explain what happens if your root
filesystem is hosed
badly enough that it requires a manual fsck before it can be mounted
read/write. In that case it always prompts for a root password,
right?
I can't remember and hope not to have to need to do it again...
... but I did need to do this a while back. The RC of one version
(Hardy?) had a problem with the wireless driver for this laptop's
chipset and would kernel panic every so often. Because of this, I
discovered that the start up scripts include a check to see if the PC
is on battery power and, if so, it skips fsck-ing even damaged file
systems.
I did a bug report, and while the developers went 'feature, feature'
(without ever explaining why it would be a good thing) everyone else
thinks it's a bug.
Unclean JFS partitions will only mount read-only, for example, so you
can be left with a brick until you can get to a mains power supply.
Ian
5436
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10 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
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Adam Spiers -
Adam Spiers -
Alan Pope -
Andy Smith -
Ian -
Paul Lewis -
Robert Gauld -
Robert Leverington