bad root shell

Mark McConnell markmc at tisimaging.com
Mon Dec 22 11:31:44 PST 2003


su -m only works when you have a bad shell, if your uid is 0

su(1)
-m Leave the environment unmodified.  The invoked shell is your
             login shell, and no directory changes are made.  As a 
security
             precaution, if the target user's shell is a non-standard 
shell
             (as defined by getusershell(3)) and the caller's real 
uid is non-
             zero, su will fail.

But otherwise, yours would be the right answer, I believe.

Mark
--

On 20 Dec 2003 at 23:32, Scott I. Remick wrote:
{Re: bad root shell...}:

> On Sat, 20 Dec 2003 09:44:17 -0800, Mark McConnell wrote:
> 
> > An error in a pw* script inserted a non-existent shell into the password
> > database, effectively locking out root.
> > 
> > I used a fixit disk to correct the problem, using this procedure:
> 
> Unless I'm missing something, seems like the long way to do this. Last
> time I did this to myself, I did the following:
> 
> 1) Log in as a user who can su to root.
> 2) Use su -m to su to root without changing your current shell
> 3) As root, use chpass -s to change your shell to a working one.
> 
> Of course, this won't work if your only account is "root" or you don't
> have anyone else in the wheel group, so maybe it doesn't apply to you.
> 
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Mark McConnell - Portland, OR
Technical Imaging Systems
markmc at tisimaging.com
503-546-0517
mkmcconn at hevanet.com
503-257-7591



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