Hello,

While using DrakPerm in Mandrake 9.2, I messed up adding some rules, and ended up changing the ownership of /etc, /var and (maybe) /bin, so that they were all owned by a normal user instead of root.

Realizing what happened, I took out the rules I'd added, and saved. I ran "msec", hoping that it would return the permissions back to normal. Apparently not.

Now whenever I boot up, I receive this error:

INIT: version 2.85 booting
INIT: cannot execute "/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit"
INIT: Entering runlevel: 5
INIT: cannot execute "/etc/rc.d/rc"

I assume this is because the permissions are still hosed, since I don't recall editing any of the files it mentions. Is there any way I can fix this?

I tried booting the first disc of the 9.2 installer and typing "rescue", but it dies saying:

can't open /etc/resolv.conf for read

I assume this is also due to the screwed permissions.

Thanks a LOT,

Mark

Try entering as root:
chmod 755 /etc

Sounds like the x bit isn't set even for root which for a directory means that you can't enter.

That's what I did in the end, more or less... The trouble was getting to a shell, since the boot process would just hang.

I ended up adding init=/bin/bash while booting, which got me a shell.
After that I had to use mount -oremount,rw / to get write access, and then I did chmod on everything in /etc.

Problem (mostly) solved.. Except now I have to try to fix all the other permissions that got messed up. Ah well..

Thanks for your help!