Re: I belong to too many groups

Nathan Vidican <nvidican@xxxxxxxxx> · Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:34:20 -0500

Bob @ Brisbane wrote:

It took me so long to get onto this list that in the end I just gave and 
reinstalled over the top of the old one. It all works now, but I would 
still be interested in a way around the problem if one exists. The 
original problem is described below
I recently installed FreeBSD 6 RELEASE onto a hard drive and added two 
other

users, bob and bill.
Whilst I was doing this I decided to make root and bob members of ALL the
groups in the system.
I now find that I am unable to log in as either root or bob nor can I su 
from bob.

I have tried booting to safe mode but it will still not allow me to do 
anything

The messages that I get from the system are:
login: ROOT LOGIN (root) ON ttyv0
login: initgroups(root,0) : Invalid argument
login: setusercontext() failed - exiting
I can still log in as bill and this will allow me to see the system files
but bill doesn't have the authority to change anything.
I tried to su to root but bill is not in the wheel group.
If I want to run a graphical environment (and I do) then I need to start
this up as root.
Is there any way to get past this problem or will I need to reinstall?

Bob Willson

_______________________________________________

freebsd-questions@xxxxxxxxxxx mailing list

http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions

To unsubscribe, send any mail to 
"freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx"

You could always bootup the 'fixit' image from the install cd, then mount your 
root partition, and vi /etc/group. That's what I'd do given your case; if you 
are unsure of how to mount the partition, bootup your machine, login as 'bill', 
type 'mount' and look at which partition is mounted to '/'. Then bootup the 
fixit image, and 'mount /dev/_your_root_slice /mnt', then simply 'vi 
/mnt/etc/group'. Should be fairly straight forward, email back to the list if 
you still have problems with it.

--
Nathan Vidican
nvidican@xxxxxxxxx
Windsor Match Plate & Tool Ltd.
http://www.wmptl.com/
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@xxxxxxxxxxx mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx"

Re: I belong to too many groups

Relevant Pages