commented root user at /etc/passwd

[karen.pertierra]

Hello,

Can anybody help me? Im a total newbie and I accidentally commented root user in the /etc/passwd.

NOw I could no longer SSH to the server because the command "su -" gives me:

su: user root does not exist

I guess Im messed up here.

Karen

[devils casper]

boot up from any LiveCD, mount partition OR boot up in rescue mode and remove comment sign.

[karen.pertierra]

Thanks for that very quick reply, devils_casper.

How do I mount partition? Will I not lose any data or files in mounting? When I type df -h, I get the following:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 4.9G 206M 4.4G 5% /
none 121M 0 121M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda6 7.9G 786M 6.8G 11% /home
/dev/hda3 9.7G 1.5G 7.8G 16% /usr
/dev/hda2 9.7G 5.3G 4.0G 58% /var

Also, How can I boot up in a rescue mode?

I appreciate your help, really.

[devils casper]

How do I mount partition? Will I not lose any data or files in mounting?

you wont loose any data. which linux distro do you have?
do you have any LiveCD?
for mounting any partition, execute this

mkdir first
mount -t <filesystem> /dev/<partition> first

[karen.pertierra]

when I typed cat/proc/version, it gave me:

Linux version 2.6.9-42.ELsmp (buildcentos@build-i386) (gcc version 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-3)) #1 SMP Sat Aug 12 09:39:11 CDT 2006


Forgive my ignorance, but i dont know what to replace in the <partition> area. When you say,
mount -t <filesystem> /dev/<partition> first

do you mean, I have to type (as actual):
mount -t /dev/hda1 /dev/root first

[devils casper]

mount -t <filesystem> /dev/<partition> first

replace <filesystem> with the actual filesystem in which you have formated partition. ext3, vfat for FAT32, ntfs for NTFS etc.

i asume that root partition (/dev/hda1) is formated in ext3 file system. execute this

mkdir first
mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 first
cd first/etc
nano passwd

[karen.pertierra]

Oh, ok I finally got it understood. I just have to finish downloading the LiveCD and Im all set.

Thanks for your help devils_casper!