Robert Walker wrote:
Hello all,
I was trying to increase the security of my Linux box (famous last
words). I am running Mandrake 9.2 set for console login (run level 3).
I was reading an article about stopping root logins for
Red Hat Linux (v8.0)... Decided to follow the suggestions. This turned
out to be a really bad move :-)
Anyhow I am now in the situation where I have ended up with:
/etc/securetty which is blank (dumb)
/etc/ssh/sshd_config which disallows root logins (good)
I have KDE, X and tightvnc installed but I am not currently using them.
I can't 'su' root to execute a command/change to root or login as root either with a
remote
secure shell or a local shell!! I just get the message:
"This account is currently not available."
So I can't even copy the old securetty~ file back...
Do I need to reinstall everything again (would not be fun given the amount
of hassle I had setting it all up - especially the driver for the PCI
ADSL modem and kernel customisations) and start from scratch??
Is there any other way of getting root access apart from <login> and
<su>??
Is there anyway to boot from a CD to get root access back?? Or some
other solution (possibly mounting the hard disk on another box with
Linux installed)??
I usualy keep on of the floppy or CD mini-distributions around for
things like this. The other option is to boot by feeding the kernel the
option "init=/bin/bash". (append="init=/bin/bash") This will boot you
directly to the bash shell, bypassing most of the security of the
system. You will want to reboot after fixing things.
Mikkel
--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for you are crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
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