a very annoying pb with accounts

[Subhro]

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:44:32 +0200, Grégory Nou <gregorynou at altern.org> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
Hello,

> 
> Here is my (weird) problem ...
> I opened /etc/spwd.db with ee and exited (which was actually a very bad
> idea, even if I did not modified anything). At this time, everything was
> still ok.

Indeed a bad idea as you really should not open databases in text
editors like ee.

<snip>
> Then I reboot (the second very bad idea in the same day), and user "gdm"
> didn't exist anymore.

vipw
Search for the string gdm. If it exists then the gdm account is there.

> Exactly as if I forgot to make mergemaster after upgrading, but with
> only one difference : I actually didn't made a upgrade.
> So now the situation is : I can only access with root account.
> Does someone know when I did a mistake ? and does someone knows how to
> fix it ? Should I delete account in /etc/passwd and create them again ?

You can try it out but do not open the password file in a normal vi
session and start deleting the lines. Instead open it up in vipw or
use rmuser.

You can either try to rebuild the source tree and run mermaster. this
would fix the /etc/master.passwd if it is corrupted. Alternatively you
can manually add the user gdm using vipw assuming that the gdm account
does not exist.

> I had this idea, but I didn't want to make another stupid thing today :)
> Thanks a lot

You are most welcome

Regards
S.

-- 
Subhro Sankha Kar
School of Information Technology
Block AQ-13/1 Sector V
ZIP 700091
India