Running Novell SLED 10.1 on Lenovo ThinkPad T61.

I'm pretty sure I just chowned my password database by accident with an overzealous security setting in YaST. I set it to Paranoid - don't tell me this was stupid, I already know - and now it gives me these messages:

Typing in sudo nets me this: sudo: must be setuid root
Typing su to login as root gives me: Permissions on the password database may be too restrictive.
su: incorrect password

I know my password isn't incorrect; I checked it a few times. Also, when my system idles and my screen locks, I type in my user password to get back in and it won't let me in with that, either.

I tried chmod 755 * and got back a whole list of operation: permissions denied.

I can't get back into YaST; it won't even load it up.

I went to look at /etc/permissions.d/postfix and this is what I find:
/usr/sbin/sendmail root:root 0755
/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd root:root 0600
/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd.db root:root 0600
/var/spool/postfix root.root 0755
/var/spool/postfix/active postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/bounce postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/corrupt postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/defer postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/deferred postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/flush postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/hold postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/incoming postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/private postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/maildrop postfix.maildrop 0730
/var/spool/postfix/public postfix.maildrop 0710
/var/spool/postfix/pid root.root 0755
/var/spool/postfix/saved postfix.root 0700
/var/spool/postfix/trace postfix.root 0700
/usr/sbin/postalias root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postcat root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postconf root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postfix root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postkick root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postlock root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postlog root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postmap root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postsuper root.root 0755
/usr/sbin/postdrop root.maildrop 2755
/usr/sbin/postqueue root.maildrop 2755

Here is postfix.paranoid:
/usr/sbin/postdrop root.maildrop 0755
/usr/sbin/postqueue root.maildrop 0755

HELP
I don't want to reinstall or restore, I have way too many files on this box that I would be in serious trouble without, i.e. class notes and other pertinent information. Otherwise, let me know an FTP site that will take 20GB of backup files, or tell me how to back everything up, and I'll wipe and reinstall.

EDITED TO ADD:
I managed to get YaST running via /sbin/yast2 in the terminal, but now I get this when I try to click Local Security settings:
** (gnomesu:5233): CRITICAL **: No services for libgnomesu are available.

There has to be a way to fix this.

Load a Live CD, fix perms? If you can have 'suseconfig' it should take the "--module permissions" argument, else if you can only access 'rpm' then it should accept "--setperms" and "--setugids" switches.

Hi,
I managed to get in and fix it. Booted in runlevel 1, where it accepted the root password, and typed:
chown root:root /usr/bin/sudo
chmod 755 /usr/bin/sudo

did the same with /bin/su

then typed:
cd /bin
chmod 755 *
chmod u+s su mount unmount ping

that gave me enough to get into the system and boot the text-based version of YaST via the X Terminal, and change my permissions back.

Yah also if you add the option onto the end of the kernel arguments "single" using grub or whatever boot loader that allows you to change parameters, you can boot into "single user mode" where you can mount filesystems and then change permissions (as you are root by default)