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Date:      Mon, 9 Jul 2007 14:56:43 -0700
From:      Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>
To:        Jean-Paul Natola <jnatola@familycareintl.org>
Cc:        FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.org, Peter Boosten <peter@boosten.org>
Subject:   Re: password failure- after mergmaster
Message-ID:  <81A988E0-1FE2-4530-A5FD-0C0B28CD0816@mac.com>
In-Reply-To: <3A85D7EF44E1C744BF6434691F5659E9702CFE@www.fcimail.org>
References:  <3A85D7EF44E1C744BF6434691F5659E9702CFE@www.fcimail.org>

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On Jul 9, 2007, at 2:44 PM, Jean-Paul Natola wrote:
>>> Because sometimes new versions of the OS come with new built-in user
>>> accounts, which need to be added to the existing passwd or groups
>>> databases somehow?
>>
>> Yes, exactly. Have to *merge* the changes into /etc/master.passwd  
>> rather
>> than brute force overwrite.
>>
>> Notice the difference from my first post in this thread, the file  
>> which
>> was clobbered is /etc/master.passwd, not just /etc/passwd which is a
>> dummy
>
> I'M DONE now- now I cant even boot into safe or single user mode
>
> It keeps asking me to enter full pathname of  shell or RETURN  for / 
> bin/sh
>
> I hit enter and I see the same message again , and again , and  
> again and again

I have two thoughts for you:

One, FreeBSD should be a little easier to update, as the instructions  
for doing so are mildly complicated and are buried too far within the  
UPDATING document.

Two, you really should learn how to perform an update and/or recover  
from system problems if it doesn't boot by working on a test system  
first, and only making significant changes to a production system  
once you've gotten confident you know what you are doing.  Failing  
that, perhaps you ought to hire a sysadmin or consultant with decent  
BSD experience, and let them solve the issues so that you can focus  
on other things....

-- 
-Chuck




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