Hi guys,

I have suppose accidentally deleted my /etc/passwd file in a Redhat host & there is no backup. How do i recover the system now? I googled & came across solution like /etc/passwd- file exists as a backup & we can recover using that. Is that /etc/passwd- file exists in all flavours of Linux? I remember like have checked in Suse LINUX but that backup file does not exist. Need your clarification on this, whether recovery using that file is always possible(is that file exists in redhat as standard?) & incase if that file doesn't exist, how to recover?

Thanks,
Ahamed

If you're running RHEl, you should be paying for support instead of asking us.
In your honour, I booted Fedora and checked. /etc/passwd- DOES exist. Use it.

Hi sysahamed,

Boot into single user mode. If you are successful, you'll be logged in as root. From there you can build a new /etc/passwd. You will need to have a file from the same distro to use as a template and you'll have to be able to use a console-based editor. Once ou build a new and good passwd file, make a backup :-)

Just to clarify this, Red Hat offers subscriptions without support, so Red Hat questions are totally valid here. After all, we wouldn't need a Red Hat subforum otherwise.