On 20 December 2010 15:27, Simon Greenwood <sfgreenw...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On 20 December 2010 15:17, Gordon Burgess-Parker <gbpli...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> On 20/12/10 15:08, Simon Greenwood wrote: >> >> The issue with Windows is that there is a database at the core of the >> authentication mechanism, and this database can get damaged. Unix and Linux >> are essentially based on flat files which can be edited with the correct >> permissions. It is possible to damage /etc/passwd and/or /etc/shadow in such >> a way as to cause authentication failure, and also to corrupt your user >> space in such a way as to damage user configuration files, but it's also a >> lot easier to recover them. >> >> s/ >> >> Ah. That makes things a bit clearer. Are there any "Howtos" as to how a >> (relative) newbie can recover from these sorts of damage? >> > > Broadly, make sure you have an up to date backup of /etc/passwd and > /etc/shadow as well as your home directory.
To do this, I would use cp /etc/shadow /home/<username>/shadow.bak cp /etc/passwd /home/<username>/passwd.bak then archive home tar -pczf home.tar.gz /home/<myusername> then move our files onto a USB device cp /home/home.tar.gz /media/<usb drive name> I'm sure there are better tutorials out there, but It's something to look at. -- Regards, Kris Douglas. T. 0845 004 2066 | M. 07728574285 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/