[SOLVED] Accidentally chown'ed and chmod'ed recursively from "/"

dc_eros · 06-24-2011, 08:28 PM

Hi guys,

I really have a big problem here. I was trying to create a script and that what it did was copy a file, cd to the destination, chown and chmod them to 644 for files and 755 for dirs recursively I think.

But I got a variable typo and it goes to "/" instead whacking all the files.

Gladly I have a single root su'ed. I tried others but it says operation not permitted.

What I need to do to restore permissions?

Now I'm on /bin. Looks like everything is messed up. By the way this is on a VM. (work VM).

TIA

EDIT: I was lucky I have mounted ssh filesystem and it stops on a file on my /home

So it means that /bin, /boot, /dev, /etc, /home were now owned by me. "su -" will now issue:

su: Authentication failure

even if root password is correct.

lisle2011 · 06-24-2011, 08:51 PM

The symbolic links will not have changed. So you can rescue them.

I assume you did this as 'root'

It really depends on how many persons use the machine, have you changed all permissions and ownership in user directories?

If you are the only person using this machine then chown root:root * but forget the recursion because some files may not have been changed.

Since this is a VM perhaps you could scrape off your data and then re-install. You didn't indicate your status with this machine but clearly you have root access.

It is why we are warned to not perform trivial tasks using root - having this event happen.

Keep in touch - I'm pulling for you.

dc_eros · 06-24-2011, 09:10 PM

Here is my script:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
cp -ruf /media/sf_vm-shared/payslips/* /zdata/lysender/spideroak/companies/xyzcomp/payslips/
cd /zdata/lysender/spideroak/companies/xyzcomp/payslips/

if [[ $? -ne 0 ]] ; then
    echo "Cannot cd to payslips"
    exit
fi

chown lysender:users -R *
find . -type f  -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find . -type d  -exec chmod 755 {} \;

That is what I'm trying to accomplish but the early version of that uses variables. There was a typo on the variable say:

Code:

SPIRDEROAK="/path/here"

cd "$SPIDEROAK/"
chown lysender:users -R *
find . -type f  -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find . -type d  -exec chmod 755 {} \;

Then, that's all that happened

I have restored /bin, /boot, /dev, /etc and /home and didn't go that far since the script stops at some error on /home. I think I'm having a problem with my /etc. Although I have changed the ownerships and permissions, I still cannot "su -" saying authentication failed.

But I still have the last root session open here. OMG this is a work environment!

By the way I'm the only user and this is a dev machine. I didn't perform any VM snapshots so bad.

SeRi@lDiE · 06-24-2011, 09:50 PM

I hope you learn your lesson....
Every time I want to script such task as chmod, chown, chgrp, etc..... (Which I almost never do) I perform a sample script to execute in a dummy dir and than execute the scripts with a dry run to see what the script is doing.

Any who I hope you get everything back to normal. I attached the out put of getfacl to help you reset /etc

Also chmod 755 its a start

P.S.

learn xargs

dc_eros · 06-24-2011, 10:31 PM

Thanks for both of you. Yes, I got my lesson for today...

Will be trying to restore things.

dc_eros · 06-24-2011, 11:00 PM

Hi there,

I have solved my su problem by following this thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ailure-298005/

chmod +s /bin/su

But I'm afraid there are still other bins that needs suid bit. I'm attaching my /bin permissions.

Many thanks for the help!

mRgOBLIN · 06-25-2011, 02:45 AM

Try Camerons smprms script.
He's an old friend of mine and he actually lives in the same town =)

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~cameronk/progs.html.