How to properly re-establish users after a reinstall?

Stephen cryptworks at gmail.com
Wed Apr 22 20:37:49 MST 2009


A good canidaye for an installfest?

Not sure what is going on with Tope wireless. But maybe connecting to
the wire and econfiguering it to something more derindly is an idea?


On 4/22/09, Josef Lowder <joe at actionline.com> wrote:
> 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
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>>  >> believed to be clean.
>>  >>
>>
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-- 
Sent from my mobile device

A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

Stephen


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