I just borked my computer (Ubuntu reinstall)

Eliot Rosewater

Grrr! I just ran this command:

WARNING: Do not run this command!

sudo chmod 777 -R /

when I should have run

sudo chmod 777 -R ./

sudo doesn't even work anymore. All permissions are destroyed. A reinstall is the only option, I imagine? And pretty sharpish too.

Eliot Rosewater

Given that 10.04 doesn't shutdown on my computer I'll probably install 9.10.

Other than /home and my mysql files /var/lib/mysql, any other folders I should backup?

Jonathan

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Other than /home and my mysql files /var/lib/mysql, any other folders I should backup?

Perhaps the machine SSH key if you don't want to get an "ATTENTION KEY CHANGED" message when you SSH into that machine?

loldog

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Grrr! I just ran this command:

WARNING: Do not run this command!

sudo chmod 777 -R /

when I should have run

sudo chmod 777 -R ./

sudo doesn't even work anymore. All permissions are destroyed. A reinstall is the only option, I imagine? And pretty sharpish too.

Wait. Can you boot into recovery mode, become root that way? Then change the permissions back to something sensible?

Maybe this might help - Psychocats fix broken sudo. Maybe you're not using Ubuntu but the principles will probably be the same whatever distro you're using.

Eliot Rosewater

Jonathan wrote: »

Perhaps the machine SSH key if you don't want to get an "ATTENTION KEY CHANGED" message when you SSH into that machine?

Doesn't pertain to my machine, but cheers anyway! I've decided to reinstall on a different partition, so I can see later if I need anything else.

loldog wrote: »

Wait. Can you boot into recovery mode, become root that way? Then change the permissions back to something sensible?

I could. However I imagine it's a pretty mammoth task, and I don't really trust myself under root after that prize moment of stupidity this morning! Was planning a reinstall anyway. Thanks!

Eliot Rosewater

The biggest issue during the changeover were files I wanted to keep, specifically all those in my home folder. They'd been changed from 644 to 777, so that even .txt files were prompted to execute.

Following this guide restored the default permissions: http://timwise.blogspot.com/2008/08/reseting-home-folder-permissions-in.html

bnt

One time-saver I found before was to back up the contents of /var/cache/apt/archives/ and restore the files on the new installation straight away. This contains all the .deb files that you downloaded, and if apt-get finds a package in there, it doesn't try to download it again. If you think there are obsolete files in there, do a sudo apt-get autoclean when you get the chance.