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Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users Big problem: shell entry in /etc/passwd corrupted for user root Post 303042208 by Neo on Thursday 19th of December 2019 01:19:02 AM
Old 12-19-2019
Sometimes when I am working on these kinds of "gotacha" files, I temporarily change the permissions to read:write for all users or change the owner of the file to an "other than root" user, or both. Then, when all is testing and working OK, I change back to how it was (root ownership, only root can modify, etc.)

I have a funny story to tell (someday) about this, regarding temporarily disabling google_authentication on a server, because of problems with an iPhone lightening connector (battery would not charge, port did not work at all) and the many hours of headaches a small mistake caused me (blocked my own root access on a remote server); all of this started with dust in the iPhone charge port and me spraying some contact cleaner into the port, gumming it up ever worse.

Always have one more more backup plans when doing these kinds of "gotcha" file changes. In the case cited above, because I had to restart sshd, even having two other open ssh connections as root into the server did not help!

Of course, all these editorial comments do not help "after the fact" and so it if makes you feel any better, most of us have made similar mistakes at one time or another.
Remember, you can temporarily change permissions and ownership on files when working on these kinds of "whoops, it got me" changes.
This User Gave Thanks to Neo For This Post:
 

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ST_SNAPSHOT(1)							      systraq							    ST_SNAPSHOT(1)

NAME
st_snapshot - calculate checksum and stat ownership and permissions of files SYNOPSIS
ST_SUM=sha256sum st_snapshot patterns homepatterns DESCRIPTION
st_snapshot calculates checksums and stats ownership and permissions of critical system files. This script is typically run in either root-mode or public-mode. Running this script in root-mode requires root priviliges. One is adviced to set up a dedicated user account for running this script in public mode. In root-mode, the files snapshot_root.list and snapshot_root.homelist are typically passed as arguments. These pattern files are read by the script and contain names of files and directories; listing a directory in such a pattern file is equivalent to listing all files which live in the directorytree with this directory as root. snapshot_root.list could e.g. read # snapshot_root.list - files and directories we wanna get # monitored: we wanna get a note once these files, or any file # under these directories, gets created, gets rm-ed, gets # permissions or contents changed. these notices will not # include the possibly secret contents of these files # # this file gets read by st_systraq /etc/group /etc/gshadow /etc/hosts.allow /etc/hosts.deny /etc/hosts.equiv /etc/lilo.conf /etc/passwd /etc/postfix/server.pem /etc/shadow /etc/skel /etc/ssh Equivalent files snapshot_pub.list and snapshot_pub.homelist should be on the system. These files should contain all worldreadable to be monitored files. This allows for running this script as root only in those cases where it's needed: when reading files, readable for root only. The homelist files contain files and directories which should get monitored for every homedirectory on the system. snapshot_pub.homelist could e.g. contain: .profile .cshrc .tcshrc .login .logout .bash_profile .bashrc .exrc .nexrc As a special case, when the environment variable ST_OPHOMES is set to a non-empty string (typically when running in public mode), we stat the permissions on all homedirectories themselves. The produced snapshot is printed to stdout. The output when running in public mode could look like: # ownership and permissions of homedirs drwxr-xr-x root root /bin drwxr-xr-x root root /dev drwxr-sr-x root staff /home drwxr-sr-x joostvb joostvb /home/joostvb drwxr-xr-x root root /usr/sbin drwxr-xr-x root root /var # sha256sum of critical pub files 4d3cd13d6dbc10e2e3ccb9477cbc9eb9b76302454c276d5771ae0b10a5fbb4d2 /home/joostvb/.ssh/id_rsa.pub eb8d83e0246f761a21bdfb13a03fac634ed7c3b7dde4c2efddd7b2838d32596f /var/qmail/alias/.bashrc 4e371f9a11f5a2464d3d5c952e58e24f73b377d33767ed93b2082fcb59a647fe /etc/zlogin # ownership and permissions of critical pub files -rw-rw-r-- joostvb joostvb /home/joostvb/.ssh/id_rsa.pub -rw-r--r-- joostvb joostvb /home/joostvb/.ssh/authorized_keys ENVIRONMENT
ST_OPHOMES - non-empty in case permissions on all homedirectories should be printed ST_SUM - command for calculating file checksums. E.g. sha256sum, sha512sum, sha384sum, sha224sum or sha1sum. SEE ALSO
The systraq manual. VERSION
This manpage: $Id: st_snapshot.pod 374 2008-12-14 08:47:32Z joostvb $ COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008 Joost van Baal This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program (see COPYING); if not, check with http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA. AUTHOR
Joost van Baal <joostvb-systraq-20041015@mdcc.cx> 20081217 2008-12-15 ST_SNAPSHOT(1)
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