Broken shell - I can't login at all

[Nathan Kinkade]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 09:56:30AM -0500, epilogue wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:57:28 -0800
> Jeff BSD <jeff.bsd at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi-
> > I'm in the process of upgrading a 4.6 system to 5.3.  When I boot the
> > machine it gets to:
<snip>
> > ----
> > Enter full pathname of shell of RETURN for /bin/sh:
> > pid # (sh), uid 0: exited on signal 12
> > init: bin/sh on /etc/rc terminated abnormally, going to single user
> > mode
> > Enter root password, or ^D to go multi-user
> > Password:
> > ----
> > 
> > Round and round I go.
> > 
> > Sounds like I broke /bin/sh to me.  I've messed around in safe mode
> > but I can't see how I can use it to possibly fix my problem, assuming
> > I did do anything to /bin/sh (which I don't think I did -
> > intentionally/directly that is).
> > 
> > How do I fix it so I can boot it?  A bit of the chicken and the egg,
> > what?
> 
> hello jeff,
> 
> please see if it will accept /rescue/sh (the statically compiled rescue
> binary)

Or you could try entering a differnt shell altogether.  tcsh and csh are
both in /bin, but appear to be single file, hardlinked by those two
names.  In any case, one of those may well work.  Personally, one of the
first things I do with a new install is to add the bash port/package and
then make a copy of the binary (/usr/local/bin/bash) in /bin.  This way
I can use the shell that is most familiar to me.

Nathan
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20050215/9977a207/attachment.bin