problem with owner of files
 

Hi guys, you can laugh at me as much as you want because I did something really stupid. :)

I changed the owner and group of some folders and the files inside to root:root. Some of the folders are:

/bin
/usr/bin
/etc
/root
/boot

The result is that I cannot login as root anymore and su doesn't work either.

What should I do? Any ideas?

Thanks,
Kaloyan

Changing them to root:root isn't that big of a deal and easily changed. In fact, a lot of those are root:root by default. You say you can't log in as root, is that because you've forgotten the password?

Yes, most of the files already had root:root owner, and I did not expect to have a problem. Apparently, though, a few critical files might have had some other owner, like system for example. I know the root password and I am typing it correctly but I cannot login directly as root and I cannot use su also. What do you think?

For example on another unix system if I list all files in /etc that have some other owner than root I get:

drwxr-xr-x 2 adm adm 512 May 3 2005 acct
drwxrwxr-x 10 lp lp 512 Jul 19 10:18 lp
drwxr-xr-x 2 uucp uucp 512 May 3 2005 uucp
...........................................................

Without being able to log in as root, I'm afraid there's not much you can do unless you're backing up the system on a regular basis. Maybe someone else has an idea, but restoring a backup is the only option I can think of. Do you get an error message or anything when you try to "su" or login in as root?

These are the permissions of "su" in /bin/ if you have it:
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 37440 2006-04-22 23:24 su
Also in bin:
-rwsr-x--- 1 root audio 24384 2006-04-22 21:06 eject
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 355645 2006-05-02 01:52 mount
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 37656 2006-04-22 20:58 ping
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 33912 2006-04-22 20:58 ping6
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 37440 2006-04-22 23:24 su
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 145299 2006-05-02 01:52 umount

A number of commands in /usr/bin use the sticky bit or have a different group owner:
-rwsr-x--- 1 root trusted 49904 2006-05-02 02:59 at
-rwsr-x--- 1 root trusted 24336 2006-04-22 22:28 bing
-rws--x--x 1 root root 612984 2006-05-02 20:37 cdrdao
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root shadow 83408 2006-05-02 04:02 chage
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root shadow 79584 2006-05-02 04:02 chfn
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root shadow 74904 2006-05-02 04:02 chsh
-rwsr-x--- 1 root trusted 37912 2006-05-29 10:48 crontab
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root shadow 16576 2006-05-02 04:02 expiry
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root shadow 78872 2006-05-02 04:02 gpasswd
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 834288 2006-08-06 18:26 gpg
-rws--x--x 1 root root 127442 2006-09-28 16:42 growisofs
-rwsr-xr-x 1 lp sys 12784 2006-04-25 12:14 lppasswd
-rwsr-xr-x 2 root root 7176 2006-04-22 22:36 man
-rwsr-xr-x 2 root root 7176 2006-04-22 22:36 mandb
-rwsr-x--- 1 root trusted 189240 2006-05-01 07:41 ncplogin
-rwsr-x--- 1 root trusted 173976 2006-05-01 07:41 ncpmap
-rwsr-x--- 1 root trusted 180216 2006-05-01 07:41 ncpmount
-rwsr-x--- 1 root trusted 46512 2006-05-01 07:41 ncpumount
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 20192 2006-05-02 04:02 newgrp
-rwsr-x--- 1 root trusted 50944 2006-05-01 07:41 nwsfind
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root shadow 78872 2006-05-02 04:02 passwd
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 21088 2006-04-22 20:55 rcp
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 15808 2006-04-22 20:55 rlogin
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 11640 2006-04-22 20:55 rsh
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 119480 2006-05-02 02:59 sudo

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root tty 12544 2006-05-02 01:52 wall
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root tty 11408 2006-05-02 01:52 write
-rwxr-x--- 1 root trusted 13336 2006-04-22 22:46 ziptool

Your best bet may be to verify your files using the rpm command, and freshen the packages where you made changes.

Note: I'm not using Fedora Core, so my results may be different. The su and passwd command will need to be changed before you can log in as root or change passwords.