From: ralph@falcon.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Ralph Becker-Szendy) Subject: [Q] "Cannot execute /bin/*sh: Permission denied" prevents login Date: Fri, 7 May 1993 06:26:54 GMT
Oh great gurus,
Since today, any attempt to log into my 0.99.6 Linux box have failed
with the above message. The first thing which happened (while I was
still logged in) was that every single command (except shell builtins)
failed due to "permission denied". Things I have done since then:
- logged out
- rebooted multiple times
- checked that all the directories and executables exist and work
and are marked as readable and executable
- copied /etc/getty, /bin/login and /bin/tcsh onto themselves (rename
them, then copy them back to where they belong),
- created a brand-new test account,
- removed the shadow password from the test account,
- tried "su - username" instead of logging in,
- tried both /bin/sh and /bin/tcsh as the login shell,
- fsck'ed all filesystems (even root by using a bootable floppy),
- checked which programs are setuid, and none of the set {login, getty,
the shells} are (should they?).
By the way, everything is perfectly normal for root, it is just
the user accounts which are completely dead.
The only major change which happened today was installation of the
mount 0.99.6 package, and of libc.4.3.3. After these two changes, the
system was haevily used for about 6 hours without problems. The
beginning of the problem happened shortly after the first time I tried
to start X from a user account (as opposed to root), which failed
half-way because twm was not executable (probable nothing else was
either, so twm might have been the first victim).
Very confusing. What can I do to fix it ?
-- Ralph Becker-Szendy RALPH@SLAC.STANFORD.EDU Stanford Linear Accelerator Center RALPH@SLACVM.BITNET M.S. 95, P.O. Box 4349, Stanford, CA 94309 (415)926-2701 My opinion. This is not SLAC, Stanford U, or the US DoE speaking. Just me.