Re: AIX 5.3 disaster recovery fro AIX newbie

From: Justin Bleistein (justin.bleistein_at_TOWERSPERRIN.COM)
Date: 09/26/05

  • Next message: Kovetsky, Dmitry: "AIX 5.3 disaster recovery fro AIX newbie" 
    Date:         Mon, 26 Sep 2005 13:35:56 -0400
To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU

    What do you mean "to zero"? It's zero bytes? Well the "/etc/passwd" file
    is not binary or any other proprietary file format. It's just ascii. This
    means
    you can edit it directly. Keep in mind this file only has 7 basic fields:

    user_name:!:user_UID:user_GID:User_Geco:User_Home_Dir.:User_Shell

    user_name = Make sure every user stanza in the AIX shadow file:
    "/etc/security/passwd" this respective line in this: "/etc/passwd" file.
    ! = This means that the encrypted password is set in the shadow file:
    "/etc/security/passwd"
    user_UID = Unique User ID number for the particular UID number.
    user_GID = Unique Group ID number that a particular user belongs too.
    User_Geco = The full name of the user in real life.
    User_Home_Dir = The full path of the directory that you want to specify as
    that user's home directory.
    User_Shell = The shell/program which will be executed when a user logins.

    As long as your shadow file: "/etc/security/passwd" file is in place, you
    should be able to rebuild the "/etc/passwd" file just fine.
    Thanks.

    --Justin Richard Bleistein
    Towers Perrin - AIX Systems Administrator
    (215) 246-6521 - (Desk)
    (877) 402-2853 - (Pager)
    (856) 912-0861 - (Cell)
    justin.bleistein@towersperrin.com - (Email)

    "Kovetsky, Dmitry" <Dmitry.Kovetsky@ENCANA.COM>
    Sent by: IBM AIX Discussion List <aix-l@Princeton.EDU>
    09/26/2005 12:27 PM
    Please respond to
    IBM AIX Discussion List <aix-l@Princeton.EDU>

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    Subject
    AIX 5.3 disaster recovery fro AIX newbie

    Good morning everyone
    Now I've got a chance to practice AIX disaster recovery: one of the
    scripts smoked /etc/passwd file, to zero. Machine is micropartition,
    freshly installed but due to some reasons rebuild is not an option. Could
    you please advise how to I recover from this situation? (Way to boot to
    single user? Mount rootvg and restore passwd from other machine?)
    Thanks in advance
    Dmitry

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