From: sens@FASECON.ECON.NYU.EDU (Sunando Sen) Subject: Re: [Q] "Cannot execute /bin/*sh: Permission denied" prevents login Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 02:14:20 GMT
In article <C6n8Kv.1Fq@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU> ralph@falcon.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Ralph Becker-Szendy) writes:
>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 ?
It might sound very silly, but did you try "chmod 755 /" ? If the root
directory is not readable or accessible, nothing else under it will be.
Hope it helps.
Regards,
Sunando Sen
fasecon.econ.nyu.edu