Serious problem: Accidental chmod -R 777 /

neocookie · 05-13-2006, 05:28 AM

Hi guys

I accidentally did a "chmod -R 777 /". Since then I've had no end of problems during boot. I need to change permissions in /etc/init.d (debian) but can't as the logged in user. Whenever I try to su to root, i get an "setgid: Operation not permitted" error. Sudo doesn't work either.

How can I fix this?

oskar · 05-13-2006, 05:57 AM

I had the same problem a while back.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=424052

There is no solution in this thread though, but you should be able to login as root.

Quote:

Try with a live cd. chroot to the partion and change the ownership rights.

jonaskoelker · 05-13-2006, 06:09 AM

My best suggestion would be to pop in a livecd (shipitand do some chmodding from there. Or go the windows way of reinstalling

hth --Jonas

neocookie · 05-15-2006, 02:41 AM

I've managed to get it booting properly again, by using knoppix to reset some of the permissions.

However, now when it boots I'm unable to get ssh access, and whats worse is that they keyboard doesn't work so I can't log in!

Any ideas what I might've done?

tredegar · 05-15-2006, 03:41 AM

Sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but your system is wrecked!

I did a similar thing when I was starting with linux (in my case chown -R kp:kp .* as root.)
I forgot that the .. file in every directory would mean that the -R flag would traverse up as well as down the filesystem. So ALL my files were owner:group kp:kp = Dead system.

Save your personal files from /home/ and re-install, otherwise you'll be storing up major problems for the future.

HTH