How to properly re-establish users after a reinstall?

[Josef Lowder]

I gave up trying to fix the problems and just did a totally fresh
reinstall both hda5 and hda7.

But that still didn't solve all the problems.
What is so frustrating is that everything was working perfectly on
this system until I tried to install Virtual Box and that royally
screwed up everything.

So now, even with a clean fresh new installation of the same system
from the same media as before ... I still have several problems that I
never had before ... even after reformatting both partitions and
reinstalling (several times).

Now Firefox won't start and wireless doesn't work on my router, though
it does work on my neighbor's router.  Two other systems in my
home/office do work via wireless on my router.  Both Firefox and
wireless worked fine in the original installation (which Virtual Box
wrecked).

Go figure.

I've reinstalled Firefox several times, even totally removing all
traces of it and reinstalling.
Still can't get it to work.  All the files seem to be there the same
as on one of my other systems with the exact same installation.

Sure hope somebody can help me solve this.  I've only been working on
this off and on for two weeks.

joe

On 4/21/09, Charles Jones <charles.jones at ciscolearning.org> wrote:
> * waits for Hans to suggest using RCS *  :-)
>
>
>  Lisa Kachold wrote:
>  > Learning to edit systems files is an advanced process.
>  >
>  > While I never limit my teaching to a dumbed down level, with "NEVER"
>  > admonishments, I did not give you the "safety net rap" reserved for
>  > the best and brightest fledgling systems people:
>  >
>  > "ALWAYS copy any systems file you edit to backup before changes".
>  >
>  > cp /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.$me
>  >
>  > Once the changes are complete and written off as "all good" be sure to
>  > delete all files with .$me {a cron can be setup to do this}.
>  >
>  > Alternately, systems people setup a quick bash tool that will copy it
>  > to $DATE, since they will be editing a great many files a day and need
>  > to be able to see what happened when.
>  >
>  > Editing /etc/passwd is simple, but if you are not sure, delete and
>  > setup your user using command line adduser:
>  >
>  > useradd - Create a new user or update default new user information
>  > SYNOPSIS
>  >
>  > useradd [-c comment] [-d home_dir]
>  >
>  >     [-e expire_date] [-f inactive_time]
>  >     [-g initial_group] [-G group[,...]]
>  >     [-m [-k skeleton_dir] | -M] [-n] [-o] [-p passwd] [-r]
>  >     [-s shell] [-u uid] login
>  > useradd -D [-g default_group] [-b default_home]
>  >
>  >     [-e default_expire_date] [-f default_inactive]
>  >     [-s default_shell]
>  >
>  > On 4/20/09, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
>  >
>  >> On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 19:53 -0700, Lisa Kachold wrote:
>  >>
>  >>> Looks like your /home partition was being equated as /hda7 - which makes
>  >>> sense.
>  >>>
>  >>> umount /dev/hda7
>  >>> mkdir /home
>  >>> mount -t ext3 (or whatever it is) /dev/hda7 /home
>  >>> df -k
>  >>> vi /etc/passwd
>  >>> ls -al ~joe
>  >>> ls -al ~pattie
>  >>>
>  >>>
>  >>> You can change the mount point via /etc/fstab
>  >>> You can change the users home via /etc/passwd
>  >>> Be sure to chown/chgrp all the files to their corresponding users
>  >>>
>  >>> cd ~joe | chown -R joe:joe *
>  >>> cd ~pattie | chown -R pattie:pattie *
>  >>>
>  >> ----
>  >> just a comment...I don't generally recommend to people to directly
>  >> edit /etc/passwd, /etc/group, /etc/shadow (even with vi) just because
>  >> the problems caused by a careless edit are truly vexing. Perhaps that is
>  >> one way people can learn but it is not the thing to do for the most
>  >> users.
>  >>
>  >> Craig
>  >>
>  >>
>  >> --
>  >> This message has been scanned for viruses and
>  >> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
>  >> believed to be clean.
>  >>
>
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