Ok, it's the stupidest thing ever. I mean to type mv -f blah ./*, but what I actually type is mv -f blah /*.

Luckily, it seems the mv died on trying to overwrite /boot, which was right after /bin, which was the first alphebetical directory.

So here's the situation I am in right now - I have shell access, even though bash was removed along with everything else, but since it's still running, I still have it.

I don't have ls, mount, chmod, or any of the other /bin utils.

By chance, I happened to have a webserver elsewhere on the internet that I was able to FTP to and transfer a .gz of the entire /bin directory into my /root.

But, since /bin doesn't exist any more, and mkdir is inside of it, I can't make /bin, nor do I have mv to put the gz file into the directory, though I do have gzip, by way of the same ftp connection.

I have another older version of Mandrake locked away on an unmounted partition, which I can't mount because I don't have that either.

I would really like to avoid totally reinstalling the system, especially since it seems like I can *almost* fix it.

If you have any suggestions, they would be appreciated.

hmm, perhaps you should cd into /bin (cd being an internal command) then ftp the programs indvidually using mget

Regrettable, /bin doesn't exist. Is there a way to force a directory to be created, besides with mkdir?

better yet use sftp to ftp as root therefore you can cd to the /bin directory on the webserver via ftp and access it

With a little luck you have
mc
somewhere in
/usr/bin
or
/usr/local/bin

Have a look :}


Cheers,
Tink

No MC. Originally, I was hoping to unpack the rpm with MC in it. That's what led me to recognize that rpm and every other useful tool in linux is in the bloody /bin directory.

ok, so sftp to your webserver, copy over /bin/mkdir then ./mkdir /bin then cd /bin sftp back to your webserver's /bin directory and get everything good luck

Alright. I'm convinced that the last post would work, IF I could chmod the downloaded file to executable. Is there any way to do this manually?

if you use sftp, it should automatically be executable uppon transfer

Yes, but the webserver rejects my connection via sftp.

If you had a livecd or at least a minimal rootdisk, you would have any number of ways to do it after rebooting.

Anyone suggest a small livecd iso?

ok, well you will have to turn on the sshd on your webserver....

KNOPPIX or Slax

the command to start sshd would be /usr/sbin/sshd then you should have ssh and sftp access

Well, my setup is a little unusual since it isn't really my server. It is a Virtual Private Server, which means that I have access to things like /bin, but I can't enable/disable services. I can use ssh, and in fact I am using it, but sftp must be disabled for some administative reason.