xubuntu

NNP · 06-08-2006, 01:20 PM

Hey, im using xubuntu 6.06. I got home today and when i booted up xubuntu i was greeted by a virtual terminal logged in as root with a terminal that looks like

Quote:

root@torvalds:/#trol in this shell

Assuming some sort of illiterate troll hasnt actually taken over my pc while i was out i dont know where this would be coming from.

I can switch to my normal user and sudo startx but naturally enough its still running as root.

I've no idea what the hell is going on....I cant switch into any other virtual terminals either. All i get is a black screen with a flashing line. Unfortunately I cant give any more details as there isnt anything unusual in the logs.

If anyone knows anything about this that would be great

Thanks,
NNP

pljvaldez · 06-09-2006, 10:20 AM

There's a guy here who set this machine to have a special prompt a lot like yours (about half way down the page).

You should be able to see if anyone else is logged into your machine by typing who. Then if you don't find another user logged on, try

Code:

find . -type f -exec grep -l "torvalds" {} \; -print

assuming of course that your machine name isn't actually "torvalds". Otherwise, change that string to something else like "trol in this shell" and you should be able to find the file where they changed the default login prompt. I assume it's probably /etc/issue, .bashrc, or .bash_profile...

Also, you should follow this page to enable the root account and set a new password for it. then also change your own password.

pljvaldez · 06-09-2006, 10:23 AM

BTW, does anyone else have physical access to this machine and/or have an account on this machine (like a roommate) who might be a prankster? If so, I'd remove their sudo access...

NNP · 06-11-2006, 03:55 PM

Nope, no-one has access to this PC besides me and I very much doubt its a security breach. This pc is called torvalds btw.

If it was just a change of prompt i'm sure i would be able to use other virtual terminals etc. Also in the root VT that i do get, if i run any commands the output comes out in the second VT despite that i'm using the 8th... its wierd.

I ran that find command you recommended but after 10-15 mins it still hadnt finished so I killed it. This is a fairly fast machine with a smallish HD so there is no way it was running correctly. I think I may just install Kubuntu and be done with it.