Pages

Search

root shell not found - Forums Linux

root shell not found - Forums Linux

root shell not found

Posted: 24 Jan 2008 11:40 AM PST

On 24 Jan, 20:09, Bill Mar <net> wrote: 

OK, first, never edit /etc/passwd without using "vipw". This useful
command does sanity checking on your changes, and will help prevent
you from making dangerous mistakes.

Also, to change a user's password, use "usermod", not direct editing.

Also, *DON'T CHANGE ROOT'S SHELL!!!!!!* Seriously, there are a big
variety of init and configuration tools which can become extremely
unhappy if you pull a stunt like that. Root is not a normal user, and
should not be treated as one.

In the meantime. You need a live Linux CD, or your installation CD for
Fedora, and to boot from the CD. With the Fedora CD, you can type
"linux rescue" and it will try to find your disks and mount them for
you. Then you can use "vi" to edit the mounted file at /mnt/sysimage/
etc/passwd.

upgrading FC6 -> FC8 - Error enabling swap device hda5: no suchdevice or address

Posted: 24 Jan 2008 08:57 AM PST

As it turns out, all i did was to change my fstab
entry that had:

/dev/hda5 ....

to

LABEL=/dev/hda5 ....

and it got past that error.

Now it hangs during dependency checks, but I know there is
an arg to pass it on startup I saw.

Thanks for the help

Grub Manual Install Question

Posted: 23 Jan 2008 11:32 AM PST

com wrote:
 
.... 

Subject to naming your partitions correctly,
this sounds fine to me.
But I don't claim to be an expert.

1) You can install grub on your Windows partition,
but I'm not sure why you would want to.
Most people install it on the MBR.
This should not interfere with Windows, if that is your worry.
Here are the stanzas in my grub.conf, as a matter of interest:
--------------------------------
title Fedora (2.6.23.9-85.fc8)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 ro root=/dev/vg/slash rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.9-85.fc8.img
itle Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
--------------------------------
If you are in doubt you can always put several stanzas
for the same system, and see which works.

2) You don't need to use the --root-directory option.
This is for installing grub for a system that is not running.

3) I don't know how your system works,
but on my SCSI system (Fedora) I cannot have /dev/sda4 and /dev/sda5 .
For historic reasons to do with IDE disks
I have to declare /dev/sda4 to be an "extended partition"
which is then divided into /dev/sda5 ... /dev/sda13 .

4) There are two precautions you could take.

a) Get Knoppix (Linux on a CD).
In my experience it is a life-saver if anything goes wrong booting.

b) I always save the MBR before installing anything on it,
with something like
dd if=/dev/sda of=mbr bs=512 count=1
Then if there is any problem I can re-install it with
dd if=mbr of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Partition troubles on a GIANT storage server

Posted: 23 Jan 2008 10:22 AM PST

In article <com>,
Ignoramus2378 <2378.invalid> wrote: 

LVM isn't really that scary, and it affords you some flexibility that you
won't get with partitioning. I just put a box in a colo with 10 400GB SATA
drives. The drives are connected through an Adaptec SATA RAID controller;
two are hardware RAID-1 with /, /boot, swap, and an LVM partition to hold
Xen domU root filesystems and swaps, while the other eight are software
RAID-5 set up with LVM as a dumping ground for data. (I used software
RAID-5 because Adaptec's firmware won't create volumes larger than 2
TB...grr. I didn't buy these cards; I'm only using them because someone
else here bought them and a bunch of them are hanging around the office. I
would've used an Areca SATA RAID controller (we also have some of those on
hand and they will create >2TB volumes), but it doesn't appear to play well
with the Asus M2N-LR.)

As long as your volume groups don't span multiple physical disks, LVM is no
more dangerous than conventional partitioning. IIRC, some additional work
is needed to boot from a logical volume, so it's simpler to use partitions
for your root and boot filesystems. For the rest, it's simple enough...
something like this:

pvcreate /dev/sdb # introduce a physical disk to LVM
vgcreate foo /dev/sdb # add it to a new volume group
lvcreate -L 10G -n bar foo # create a logical volume in it
e2fsck -jL bar /dev/foo/bar # format it

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

Verizon/LG VX8300 Dialup

Posted: 23 Jan 2008 05:57 AM PST

Thanks for the info, let us know how your bill looks. We have the same exact
phone, i think a simple 400 min plan..
mc

can not boot from DVD

Posted: 23 Jan 2008 04:15 AM PST

On Jan 24, 8:16 am, Matt Giwer <REMover.rr.com> wrote: 


I used k3b to burn (which now I know i just copied not burn!!). I will
BURN another DVD. I have to look at k3b options again.
hope it works this time..

installing Fedora 8

Posted: 22 Jan 2008 04:46 AM PST

On 23 Jan, 11:44, JM <net> wrote: 

I was apparently unclear. I did not suggest splitting your drive: this
is what I think is probably silly. I mean keeping your other drive
online on the machine.

Using a USB flash drive to install multiple versions?

Posted: 19 Jan 2008 05:54 PM PST

At Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:28:18 -0800 Bogus <bogus> wrote:
 

Basically, you install some sort of boot loader on the USB stick (eg
Grub or Lilo) and create boot loader sections based on the contents of the
isolinux directory. Typically you'll need to copy the kernel and
initial ramdisk images from the CDs and look at the isolinux.cfg files
to get the right kernel command line options. What will then happen is
that each boot option will be listed by the boot loader (either
explicity for Grub or via the 'menu' option (or TAB key) for Lilo).

It is not really much different from creating a boot/rescue floppy or
CD. I believe there are a number of web pages about creating bootable
USB sticks (Google is your friend) -- mostly these are for creating
standalone Linux systems on a USB stick, but the same principles can be
used for what you want to do.
 

--
Robert Heller -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar!
Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administration
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database
com -- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk

hwclock problem with leapseconds - posix? - solved?

Posted: 17 Jan 2008 02:01 AM PST

hi,

Bill Mar wrote:
 

thks for the hint, but nope, /usr is fully contained in /, not on an
extra partition,

so there must be something else, will post about it when i find time
to check,

thks,

helpless user