Strange and mysterious Linux crash

[Matt Alexander]

VMWare has to be run as root and it was running at the time.  AIM also
runs as root, I believe.  The partition table is fine.  It's just that
several important directories are now replaced with files.  And without
/bin/init, I obviously can't boot this box unless I use a boot floppy/CD.
~M


On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, KevinO wrote:

> Does VMWare have to be run as root ? Was it at the time ? Was AOL I.M. running
> as root then ?
>
> (I'm taking stabs in the dark and being cynical as usual ...)
>
> Are you indicating that your partition table is now messed up on this HD ?
>
> Matt Alexander wrote:
> > So my Linux box just locked up.  I was running VMWare, AIM, Konq, KMail,
> > and quite a few Konsole sessions.  I couldn't kill X.  So, I grudgingly
> > rebooted, but I got a message about a kernel panic and not finding init.
> > Odd.  So I booted from a floppy and mounted my filesystem.  Here's what I
> > found:
> >
> > /bin, /lib, and /opt are no longer directories.  /bin is now a copy of my
> > passwd file.  /lib is now a copy of my group file.  And /opt is another
> > copy of my passwd file.  /usr/local/lib is now a copy of something that
> > looks like a sound config file, with entries like "synth:64:64:R" and
> > "pcm:64:64:P".
> >
> > SoooooooOOOOooOOOOoOOOoo...  what the heck happened?  Any guesses?
> > Thanks,
> > ~M
> >
> >
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>
>
> --
> Kevin O'Connor
>
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>
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