*BSD News Article 67669


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!cancer.vividnet.com!hunter.premier.net!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!EU.net!Germany.EU.net!zib-berlin.de!news.tu-chemnitz.de!irz401!uriah.heep!news
From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: corrupt etc/spwd.db
Date: 4 May 1996 11:24:04 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <4mfeok$lob@uriah.heep.sax.de>
References: <4m9j3i$qcq@netnews.upenn.edu>
Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.heep.sax.de
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.6
X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669
X-PGP-Fingerprint: DC 47 E6 E4 FF A6 E9 8F  93 21 E0 7D F9 12 D6 4E

eumansky@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Eric M. Umansky) wrote:

> For unknown reasons, the spwd.db and passwd files seem to have
> erased themselves. We have been able to access the files using
> single user-mode, but the problem is that we don't know what to put
> in the spwd.db file. And until we can put something there, we are
> SOL. So any suggestions on where we might be able to find what goes
> in these files?

Run pwd_mkdb again.  The simplest way to invoke it is to run vipw, and
add a dummy line (or modify something else temporarily).  It will then
rebuild your .db files.

Note that pwd_mkdb is in the /usr file system, so you have to manually
fsck and mount it.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)