My shop box has no users!

[gene heskett]

On Thursday, February 03, 2011 04:46:39 pm gene heskett did opine:

> On Thursday, February 03, 2011 03:17:17 pm Reinhold Rumberger did opine:
> > On Donnerstag 03 Februar 2011, 19:29:17, gene heskett wrote:
> > > Greetings;
> > > 
> > > I tried to synchronize my usernum between this machine, and the shop
> > > machine, which amanda also backs up.  By modifying everything in
> > > /etc to renumber the user gene from 1000 to 500 like it is here on
> > > this pclos box. That did not gain me write perms in /home/gene on
> > > the shop box, so I reverted everything.
> > > 
> > > I can ssh into this machine as 'gene', using my usual passwd, but
> > > the prompt is:
> > > root at shop:/var# logout <-i did a ctrl+d
> > > I have no name!@shop:~$ whoami
> > > whoami: cannot find name for user ID 1000
> > > 
> > > Yet I exist in both the original /etc/passwd, /etc/group as
> > > 1000:1000
> > 
> > I've never used amanda (to complex for my little laptop), so I'm
> > clueless about that, but could you check the permissions on these:
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1002 2011-01-20 12:21 /etc/group
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2,0K 2010-12-10 00:14 /etc/passwd
> > 
> > I just reproduced the above problem by removing read permissions.
> > 
> >   --Reinhold
> 
> A tip of this old farts blaze orange winter hunting cap to Reinhold, I
> believe that was it as I found all the files that I had reverted by
> doing the mv file- to file, to have no read perms for other than root.
> 
> Thank you very much.  However, in order to fix my ssh login, I logged
> out and back in so I am now presented with a 'gene at shop' prompt.  But
> now I've lost my entry in sudoers, damn.  That I assume is a reboot to
> level 1 fix only?
> 
> The sudoers file looks like this now:
> # User privilege specification
> root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
> 
> # Allow members of group sudo to execute any command after they have
> # provided their password
> # (Note that later entries override this, so you might need to move
> # it further down)
> %sudo ALL=(ALL) ALL
> #
> #includedir /etc/sudoers.d
> 
> # Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
> %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL
> 
> IIRC that % sign means its a comment too?
> 
> I just waded through the snow and tried to get to the boot menu about 7
> or 8 times, but it cannot be done with all the speedboot fixings.
> 
> So, how do we get a rescue mode with this now, or am I resigned to
> taking a cd out there & seeing if I can recall how to edit the perms on
> the sudoers file, which are 444 now and should be 440, so it will not
> use it, locking me out.  I guess thats the next step anyway, back
> later.

Later turned out to be quite an exercise, I carried about 5 various install 
cd's & dvd's out there, and finally found one with a "Rescue" mode.  An old 
32 bit F10 install dvd that I should have thrown out years ago.  But even 
so, I could get the file perms to stick about the 1st 7 or 8 times I did 
the chroot /mnt/sysimage, the worked on the sudoers file, using up all told 
2 full cycles of the 30 boot fsck timeouts before I was actually running.

But now it appears that any error in the xorg.conf file triggers the 
failsafe mode, and that fails because it absolutely must run the vesa 
driver for this application as the other drivers tie up the interrupts for 
way too long and would destroy either the machine, or the parts it is 
carving.  Unforch, by the time it finds the 'vesa' string in teh xorg.conf 
file, the kernel has already loaded the radeon driver and its helpers.

So, what is the std procedure to blacklist the ati/radeon drivers from ever 
being loaded so that vesa can do its thing un-molested by the much greedier 
ati/radeon stuff?

I doubt that removing them from /lib/modul;es/`uname -
r`/kernel/drvers/video would help as they are probably included in the 
initrd.  And I just rebooted to find that putting both ati and radeon into 
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf has no effect, they are still loaded and 
showing after a reboot.

So, what's next here?

Thanks.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
<http://tinyurl.com/ddg5bz>
"In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved."
-- Butler