What would cause this?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Today, I was working in the terminal, and I did, "ls -l" in the root directory, EVERY folder and file gave access to EVERYONE, we are talking system files, everything. And ownership was under an unknown username and group. I had to completly overhaul anything. Any ideas how this could have happened? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    angus_dangus_d Posts: 3member
    At a guess, you installed Fink with an outdated version of passwd, which created some extra users. You subsequently deleted one or more of the extra users in System Preferences -&gt; Users. The Users pane is idiotic, and screwed up your drive. Your machine will now no longer boot... (by the way this is fixed in the latest Fink).
  • Reply 2 of 5
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 3 of 5
    aslanaslan Posts: 97member
    Hey!



    I just had a FW hardrive get hosed as a start-up disk cause of a User folder issue much like the one described above (except Fink wasn't the culprit so much as human stupidity)...



    Does anyone know how to "repair" as OS X installation in which the User folders have been tampered with? As of now, it just "hangs" on the spinning wheel and blue screen while starting X. i.e. is there a way to "fabricate" a user without booting from that drive and "making one" with SysPrefs? Probably not as that is sort of a security hole I guess...grrr
  • Reply 4 of 5
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 5 of 5
    aslanaslan Posts: 97member
    Yes yes yes yes...



    This is what I did exactly:



    Have a new HD for my powerbook and a new Oxford911 2.5" Firewire enclosure for the ousted drive it is replacing. To prep the drive I have opted to put the new one in the enclosure for loading of OS and old junk with the intention of swapping drives between devices when it is ready for booting.



    I installed OS X 10.1.4 w/o a hitch, but here is where I screwed up: I booted off the external drive as root (to be able to modify Users directory - my intention being to replace the newly created home folder w/ the home from my laptop's hard drive. Follow me?), and then replaced the new user directory with my older one of the same name/UID etc. (with a Finder copy to preserve icons, bundles etc.)



    Then I tried rebooting. Nada. Spun the NeXT wheel like a champ, frozen at the blue screen.



    Booted from the internal drive to find out what I did. Strangely enough, the user was fine (i.e. it didn't change to root or anything), but the group was "unknown" (which is legitimate) on everything in the directory tree of the home directory.



    No prob I thought:

    `sudo chgrp -R staff [username]/`



    Nothing. Still unknown all the way through. This was weird. Tried again. Nothing.



    So, here I am, fearing I gotta start from scratch and re-init the drive to reinstall OS X again. Sigh.



    Ok, so clearly I should have "kept" the newly made user rather than replace it completely, doing a manual file-merge instead. (I always am just a little too lazy and I screw myself every time ) Is there anyway to repair this? I am doubtful, but I have been surprised by UNIXGurus in the past....



    Anyone have any bright ideas? I am gonna wipe it an reinstall today anyhow to be safe, but I would still like to know for future reference. Thanks much guys and gals!



    [ 05-21-2002: Message edited by: Aslan ]</p>
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