Changing root's shell

[Nikolas Britton]

On 8/8/06, Ross Penner <ross.penner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/8/06, Pete Slagle <freebsd-questions at voidcaptain.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ross Penner wrote:
> >
> > > how do you drop to single user mode? I just know how to get there at
> > > boot time.
> > >
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > On 8/8/06, *Pete Slagle* < freebsd-questions at voidcaptain.com
> > > <mailto:freebsd-questions at voidcaptain.com>> wrote:
> > >
> > >     ross wrote:
> > >
> > >     > so it seems changed root login's shell to /usr/bin/bash which
> > doesn't
> > >     > exist. now I can't login to root at all. Oh yes, sudo isn't
> > >     installed. How
> > >     > would you grand masters of FreeBSD fix my embarrasing mistake.
> > >
> > >     Dunno if any grand masters are about, but maybe I can help with this
> >
> > >     one.
> > >
> > >       - drop to single user mode: `shutdown now`
> > >       - when prompted for a shell, type /bin/sh
> > >       - `vipw /etc/passwd` and (carefully) change root's shell to
> > /bin/sh
> > >       - type `exit` at the shell prompt to return from single user mode
> >
> > Normally you just do what I said, `shutdown now` as root, but I guess
> > you can't do that in your situation. (Silly me.) So just reboot into
> > single user mode instead, and follow the rest of the steps.
> >
> > Good luck,
> > Pete
> >
> > interestingly, by hitting the power button on the front, it went through
> the shutdown process without root permissions.
>
> I followed your steps but the problem remains. The /etc/passwd file is
> edited but I still can't logon as root. When I changed the shell initially,
> I used chpass. I
> also tried changeing the /etc/master.passwd file to no avail.

Did you re-mount the root partition in read/write mode? You know this
whole thing could have been avoided if you tested things first:

# bash
bash: Command not found.


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