From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 13 00:17:57 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2D6EC106564A for ; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:17:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from glenn@elaw.org) Received: from qb-out-0506.google.com (qb-out-0506.google.com [72.14.204.236]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E07438FC1A for ; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:17:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from glenn@elaw.org) Received: by qb-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id c8so1467338qbc.39 for ; Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:17:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.143.37.14 with SMTP id p14mr776616wfj.267.1213315376037; Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:02:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.142.51.3 with HTTP; Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:02:56 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <84a992f30806121702r39f132a8y11f8e410221e132c@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:02:56 -0700 From: "Glenn Gillis" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Subject: Tried to symlink /etc to another disk, now stuck X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:17:57 -0000 I think I did just about the worst thing I could do to my organization's FreeBSD-4.11 email server today: I was trying to free up space on the root disk and attempted to copy the /etc directory to another disk, /new/etc, then delete and symlink the old location to the new: $ sudo cp -Rp /etc /new/etc $ sudo rm -rd /etc/; sudo ln -s /new/etc /etc Of course, with the sudoers file in the original /etc directory, the first "sudo" command to remove the /etc directory disabled the second "sudo" command's ability to run. Now, I cannot log in as a privileged user to copy or move /new/etc back to /etc. (Because the password files were also in /etc.) I've tried booting into Single User mode with "boot -s" at the boot prompt, only to receive a "mountroot>" prompt wanting to know where to find the root filesystem. I've also tried booting from my installation distribution, but can't get out of the installation without the machine rebooting. To make a long story shorter, is there any hope for getting a privileged user account on this machine to move /etc back to where it should be? -- Glenn Gillis ELAW U.S. Information Technology Manager Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide http://www.elaw.org