linux Troubleshooting

[karthik_vik]

Hi,

I have a server running linux and i usually telnet into the server and work on it. Today, i tried telnetting into it and it gave me an error "/bin/.login" file not found and now i dont have the login prompt.

I dont know how to go about fixing this. Can anybody help me with this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks in advance.

Kevin

[jasonlambert]

hiya,

If you can get local access to the machine, get to a CLI, and run "locate -u" then run "locate login".

try making a symlink to the login file.

It is unusual to have the login file named ".login"? I think it should be /bin/login (minus the ".") ?

Jason

[flw]

In addition the the fix issue you should checkout what has change recently that could account for such a problem. They usually don't happen by themselves. i.e app added/deleted/updated/reconfig'd, user on machine with root privilges etc... This is to avoid the same issue in the future.

Also for the future you may wish to switch over to ssh2 which is much more secure than telnet.

Just my thoughts,

[karthik_vik]

Hi,

i am a total newbie to linux administration and I took over when the old one quit, so i am not sure what exactly you meant. Can u tell me in detail how i am to proceed. If there are any resources that i can use on the net that would be great too.

I do have local access to the machine.

Thanks a ton.

Kevin

[flw]

What I mean is something changed that caused your problem. You need to figure out what changed so you can try to stop it from happening again. Like did anyone access the console or telnet in. If so what did they do? If they were in as "root" you login also as "root" and use the arrow up key to see what commands have been run lately. It's like Windows doskey.

Since you have local access to the server you can stick to telnet remote access from your desk as long as the machine has no direct internet access.