My User and Root accounts have "vanished" in FreeBSD 6.2

Naikon

Ok, I booted into my system today and while trying to login, I got a surprise
when my user and root access accounts ceased to exist

I then booted into single user mode and mounted the partitions/drive and tried using the "passwd" command to reset the root account which was never changed in the first place.
I think something very strange has happened here, and I am wondering if others have had this problem?

fsck reports an "unclean" drive, and for some reason each partition is marked (NO WRITE) including the Swap space.


Here is my method so far:

pathname=/bin/sh

#mount -u /
#mount -a

#fsck(which runs and hangs or reports a clean drive)
#passwd
passwd:who are you?
#root
root: not found
#


And this is where I am left in confusion:p
It could be something simple, but I cant get my head around a solution.
Just to add, I am not an experienced user in BSD as you can see, but I am willing to keep learning:)
I was messing around in /etc/hosts using vi to edit some changes to get Xfce4 working again just to add:?

*Any help really appreciated:)*

ntlbell

What do you mean "ceased to exist"

if you boot up normally what happens when you try to login?

The reason the drives are read only is because you forgot to give the -rw flag when mounting /

Naikon

Well, I Initially thought I must have forgot my password:o
However, when I tried to login at the prompt, I entered root as login for example, and the prompt told me the password was incorrect.
Considering the passwd prompt didnt recognize the root account, its as if these accounts vanished(dont take this literally).
I am certain I entered the password correct, but in single user mode the prompt asked who I was.
I am just being sarcastic when I mention ceased to exist btw:/

phil

cat /etc/passwd or use more /etc/passwd to view the passwd file and see if your user accounts are there.

When you boot up in single user mode, use

$ mount -o rw /

To remount / read-write. You may have to fsck the partition beforehand. The passwd command won't work until it can write to the partition. The finger command will let you check users as well. i.e. finger [user]

Regards,

Phil.

niallb

Naikon wrote:

I am just being sarcastic when I mention ceased to exist btw:/

What exactly does the system say.
Don't paraphrase it at all!

A linux system that can't contact its authentication will say to you:
"You don't exist, go away!", so you'll appreciate the phrasing is relevant.

Naikon

I have tried out Phils suggestion and for some reason I get "permission denied" when I enter that command into the terminal.

When I boot, and subsequently asked for login:



FreeBSD/i386 (system) (ttyv0)

Login: root
password:
Login incorrect
Login:

Naikon

I think I may have spotted something a bit malicious when the system boots the Kernel:


June 28 01:12:10 system sm-msp-queue[610]: NOQUEUE: SYSERR(UID0) : /etc/mail/submit.cf :line 450 readcf: option trusted usrt :unknown user smmsp :inappropiate file type or format
Mail submission program must have RunAsUser set to non root user


The merits of being a Unix noOb *sigh*

Naikon

Never mind, the bootstrap program wont even load the kernel now.
Thanks for all the help, I had a search through the Internet on this issue, and from the looks of things, its a bit of an uncommon problem.
Now, where did I put that CD image:/