editing /etc/passwd + booting woes

From: Henry Joy McCRACKEN <hjmcc_at_terapix.iap.fr>
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 01:22:37 +0100

Dear Managers,

Okay I admit it - I did a very stupid thing - I edited the /etc/passwd
file, and attempted to remove a user's account by putting a '#' before
the relevent line. This was certainly a Bad Thing, because next time I
rebooted, I got lots an error about getty spawning too many processes,
and everything hangs... So I booted up in single user mode, editing
the /etc/passwd file again to remove the '#', and things booted up
fine... So I thought my problems were over - but no! Now it turns out
that the only way to boot up into multiuser mode is to do a 'touch' on
/etc/passwd from single user mode! If I don't do this I invariably get
the message about getty spwawning too many processes, and everything
hangs. How do I get back to where I was at before I made the mistake of
touching the /etc/passwd file? I'm not using a hashed password
file. I've also tried doing 'makepasswd' but that doesn't help either-
still I have to touch the password file in single-user, otherwise it
wont boot.

many thanks,

henry mccracken
LAS marseille
Received on Sat Dec 04 1999 - 00:25:08 NZDT

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