I'm not really sure in which forum this fits, but I think this is probably the best place to get answers. I've been plagued by all sorts of problems on Ubuntu these past few days.

First, when i logged on to my computer about three days ago, I got an error while logging in which went something along the lines of "Your $HOME/.dmrc file has incorrect permissions.... it should have permission 664 and be owner by user." After Google-ing the topic, i found that i just had to change the file's permissions. I went into the terminal and then changed the permissions, and it didn't work. So I kept trying. BTW, I was doing this through my root account as I couldn't access anything from the login screen (not even failsafe gnome). I tried the failsafe terminal, but i read somewhere that it was easier to do it graphically...

So I played around with the permissions AND ownership status for my /root folder, /home folder and /home/username folder (due to the stuff i found on this and other forums), and in the process, i somehow managed to lock myself completely from even getting to the login screen. Im totally lost, and i really need some help. I would really hate to reformat my laptop, as that wouldn't be the first time(more like the fourth or fifth time.) When i turn on my laptop,i get to the root-account style screen, and it asks me for my username and password, which after i give correctly am told that the computer is "unable to cd to /$HOME/username" or something similar.

To top it all off, for some reason i can access the internet anymore, even through my root account. I was able to at first, but i dont know whether it was coincidence or my doing for this problem to occur. I really really need help.

Thanks for any help in advance

P.S. I think this can be solved if someone could just tell me how to set the permissions for the folders back to default. It would be even better if there was some tool like system restore in ubuntu that would help me turn back the clock and fix everything.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/..._in_Unix_Linux
Read that, and understand it.

You could boot into a live linux cd such as knoppix, and change the file permissions from that OS. Ubuntu also has a live cd, I believe. Other live linux distros include knoppix-std, damn small linux, etc. (you will need to know how to mount partitions)

You should also be able to fix the file permission in failsafe mode (run level 2) under your local install.]

Don't forget the commands "chown" and "chgrp" that will. those combined with "chmod" will solve your problems.

Boot up from a live CD, "Ultimate Boot Disk", etc. and go into your directories to reset the permissions. If that does not work, then re-install may be the easiest route.
Does the Ubuntu CD let you boot up in a rescue mode or something??--I don't have it with me at work.

OOPs--duplicate

Thank you both for your quick replies.

Yes, I know that there are different ways to reset my file permissions, (that is what i have been playing with using my root account), but it's just that I dont know what it is that i have to change them to. Would it be advisable to copy the permissions that appear on the files in the live cd? I know I did something similar for some of my files when i was using debian prior to ubuntu to solve some problems. I've tried chown, chgrp and chmod on all three of these files/directories, and its just that i dont know what the system requires the permissions to be. Thanks again...

EDIT: Well, i cant really boot into failsafe mode (I think), seeing as how im not even able to get to the login screen anymore

Ok, I figured it out.

If u can get into the X gui then its a peice of cake. Otherwise just chmod 777 -R /home/usernamethatisscrewedup

That should let u in and then follow my procedure below. Keep in mind that I am using Fedora 5 but it should still be relevant to your situation.

First I went to Taskbar menu on the Desktop and chose System > Administration > Users and Groups

I then entered my root pw when prompted to do so

I clicked ADD USER button on the top.... I filled in the first 4 fields and left everything else with the default settings. The new user I created was "Bozo".

Now I logged out and logged back in as the new user name that I created. I then used Nautilus to navigate to the path: /home/. I right clicked on the folder named Bozo and chose Properties. I went to the tab named Permissions. I made no changes here, I just made a note of the settings. On the part that said Owner all 3 checkboxes where ticked and no checkboxes where ticked under Group or Others.

Then I logged out of the Bozo session and logged back in as the username with the screwed up .dmrc error. The error was still there of course since I hadnt changed anything. I then navigated to /home/ and right clicked on the folder with the name of screwedupuser and chose properties. Then I ticked the same checkboxes that I made a note of in Bozo before. I then logged out and logged back in and the error is gone.

Let me make some suggestions to the rest: Dont modify the permission on your entire home directory like I did. Not only will it make your system very unsecure but it will throw up errors as u can see. Rather, what I did was create subfolders inside of /home/username called downloads, music, movies, mydocs, extracted, warez and so on. And on those subfolders I just chmod 777 -R on them so I dont get anymore pesky errors about I dont have permissions to overwrite this or that.

Hope this helps someone!

yea... all this is covered in the link i provided... if you can gain a root bash.
You're welcome secondvijai007