🚀 go-pugleaf

I have fixed it through recovery mode. Sorry. I just got a little panicked.
--
Posted on novaBBS

Anonymous wrote:

> I think I really need help. I'm working on a Debian 10 system, and I accidentally changed the permissions of the /usr directory to 764. Now I can't get back in. Can anyone please tell me how to fix this?

chmod should do the trick. If you already changed the perms that means you have root access, so as root just use chmod (man chmod) and it will be fine. And only run as root to do some task, then switch back to a regular user.

> I have fixed it through recovery mode. Sorry. I just got a little panicked.

We've all been there :)
--
Posted on Rocksolid Light

And yay! Guess what! I just screwed up even more! I screwed up so much that the root user doesn’t even have permissions anymore!

How I just mess things up...

I honestly don’t really know what I did. I changed permissions for certain directories and files, as said above. However, I also remember deleting a couple of things through deborphan. Although I doubt that alone could cause such a mess. I noticed some security updates that were needed for my Debian system, and I applied them, thus rebooting the operating system.

Here are some things I noticed when I rebooted in:

1. My webserver wasn’t loading
2. Nobody had any permissions and special privileges. Not even root.
3. There were ZERO files I could open. Extra note is that, when I tried to open them, they gave me a ‘No applications found for “shared library” files’ error.

Then I powered Debian off and tried to get back in. It said that just about EVERYTHING failed to start. That includes the graphical interface.

I went into rescue mode, and while it was loading, there appeared to be some errors like:

“Failed to start: Create Volatile Files and Directories”
“Times out waiting for device: /dev/di id/38f50392-87ad-4cc1(Did not capture beyond this point)
“Dependency failed for: /dev/disk/by-uuid/38f50392-87ad-4cc1(Did not capture beyond this point)
“Dependency failed for: Swap”

After trying to run journalctl -xb, I got:
“Failed to execute ‘pager’, using next fallback pager: Permission denied”
“Failed to execute ‘less’, using next fallback pager: Permission denied”
“Failed to execute ‘more’, using next fallback pager: Permission denied”

I REALLY need help. If anybody is familiar with these situations or errors, has any advice, or knows how to help with this sticky situation, it would be VERY much appreciated.
--
Posted on Rocksolid Light

Anonymous wrote:

> And yay! Guess what! I just screwed up even more! I screwed up so much that the root user doesn’t even have permissions anymore!

Do you get 'Permission denied' or some other error message when trying as root?

> I honestly don’t really know what I did. I changed permissions for certain directories and files, as said above. However, I also remember deleting a couple of things through deborphan. Although I doubt that alone could cause such a mess. I noticed some security updates that were needed for my Debian system, and I applied them, thus rebooting the operating system.

Unless you have some specific reason to change permission on things, it's usually best to leave them alone. Debian does a reasonable job of setting proper permissions during install. Changing things is asking for trouble.

If you stick with apt-get, etc. It's usually safer. It's very tempting to think there is an issue and go crazy doing non-standard things to "fix" it only to find you break your entire install. Most of us have done that early on with linux and learned from it.

> Here are some things I noticed when I rebooted in:

> 1. My webserver wasn’t loading
> 2. Nobody had any permissions and special privileges. Not even root.
> 3. There were ZERO files I could open. Extra note is that, when I tried to open them, they gave me a ‘No applications found for “shared library” files’ error.

> ...trim

Probably the fastest solution is to reinstall, and then don't start changing things without noting each change, and how you could revert if necessary.

Also, are you running in a VM? Maybe out of disk space? Even if the VM says there is space the host might be out of space. Just a thought.

> I REALLY need help. If anybody is familiar with these situations or errors, has any advice, or knows how to help with this sticky situation, it would be VERY much appreciated.

Reinstall and then restrain yourself from making a ton of changes. Trust Debian. It's no where near perfect, but it usually will work properly if you leave it alone.
--
Posted on Rocksolid Light

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was doing a tedious reinstallation of Debian 10. I have learned my lesson and I won’t mess with things I don’t understand fully again. Thanks for trying to help me. Hope I don’t screw things up again sometime in the future...
--
Posted on Rocksolid Light

Anonymous wrote:

> Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was doing a tedious reinstallation of Debian 10. I have learned my lesson and I won’t mess with things I don’t understand fully again. Thanks for trying to help me. Hope I don’t screw things up again sometime in the future...

Thanks for following up. Good to know you didn't give up!

Many times in the past I would jump in to "fix" something in a Linux install by using all sorts of non-standard steps and I broke things often. Finally I learned to trust the distro and it's tools, and if there is a bug in there it's most likely being discussed somewhere online. Whatever I was trying to fix probably wasn't broken in the first place :)
--
Posted on Rocksolid Light