Stupid mistake - changed root shell to /bin/false
 

Wasn't paying attention to which terminal I was typing in, and instead of changing the shell of a test account, I changed root's shell to /bin/false.

Now I can't log into root, can't su into root, can't do anything with the root account. That's bad.

What's worse is that I'm not located anywhere near the computer. I can probably fix this issue with Knoppix when I get home, but that will be some time from now.

Is there a way I can fix this remotely?

Thanks in advance for any help anybody can provide, and excuse my idiocy. :)

Not that I can think of ;) Some type of LiveCD locally will be your best bet.

hi there,

do you have
configured?
you could mess with 'sudo'. you can execute commands with 'root' right without shell invoking.
i don't see any other chance, considering that you are with remote access.

regards
slackie1000

I didn't have sudo installed, no, but I downloaded the package. I'll install it once I get root access back.

Looks like my only plan is to wait until I can get back to the machine, boot up on my recovery CD, mount the harddrive, and edit from there.

Ah well.

No need ... use su with the -s option. That lets you specify which shell to use, overriding the entry in /etc/passwd.

I believe you mean: su -s /bin/bash or something similar? I get the prompt for the root user, but then get immediately dumped back to the original account I was in.

http://www.rt.com/man/su.1.html

If I had screwed up any account other than root, I'd be good to go.

no. you don't screw up with another user! :D

AFAIK, the '-s' option does not work if you are trying with a non-root user.

cheers,

slackie1000

I looked at that man page link, did you try the "command" option?

Might try that, but as I read the man page it sounds like the command may not be run interactively.

OK, I did a test on my system and got this command to work successfully:
This is on a Slack system.