Upgrade from source to RC1: problems with /etc : lost users and dbus

[Tom Evans]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Thomas Mueller
<mueller6727 at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> I just finished the upgrade from source from 9.0-BETA2 to RC1, and I find two problems.
>
> First, I lost my users; nonroot user names are not recognized, if for instance I type
>
> passwd arlene
>
> I already tried to login as arlene with old password, no good.
>
> I copied the /etc directory to a backup on another disk
>
> cp -Rp /etc  /media/etcbackup-BETA2
>
> and then copied back /media/etcbackup-BETA2/passwd (and group) to /etc
>
> but that didn't help.
>
> Do I have to recreate nonroot users from scratch?
>
> Also, I got a warning about DBUS not starting.
>
> When I tried to startx as root, I got into X, but mouse and keyboard were nonfunctional;
> I did type Ctrl-Alt-F1 and Ctrl-C to get out of X.
>
> I think it was the second mergemaster part.
>
> Should I, as root and X not running, do
>
> mv /etc /etcbackup-RC1
>
> and
>
> cp -Rp /media/etcbackup-BETA2 /etc
>
> where /media would be mount point for backup partition on USB 3.0 hard drive?
>
> The second invocation of mergemaster (after booting single-user) can wreak havoc on /etc .
>
> As I type this, I am in my older installation of FreeBSD 9.0-BETA1 but have access to RC1 partition.
>
> By the way, /etc/rc.conf remained intact, showing that hald_enable and dbus_enable are still there:
>
>
> hostname="amelia2"
> keymap=us.iso.kbd
> ifconfig_re0="DHCP"
> ifconfig_re0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
> sshd_enable="YES"
> moused_enable="YES"
> ntpd_enable="YES"
> hald_enable="YES"
> dbus_enable="YES"
>
> Tom
>

I have had this happen before, the PEBKAC. When running mergemaster,
it will prompt you to install new passwd, master.passwd and group
files - if you have added local users you must not say yes to this,
you must either merge the changes in or keep your local one.

If you still have a backup, you are probably missing just master.passwd.

hald, dbus would fail to start since their users are no longer there.

Once you've done this to your system once, you never want to do it again!

Cheers

Tom