[ale] no root shell

[Joseph A Knapka]

"James P. Kinney III" wrote:
> 
> su -s /bin/sh  should force the use of /bin/sh

Perhaps, but it apparently does so by starting the default shell
and then exec'ing the -s argument. (Actually if it were possible
to get around using the shell specified in /etc/passwd, I think
that would be a serious security hole - consider
"su -s /bin/sh ftp" and similar).

-- Joe

> use your favorite
> 
> On Mon, 2002-07-08 at 15:25, Joseph A Knapka wrote:
> > "James P. Kinney III" wrote:
> > >
> > > You will need to reboot the box with an alternate boot device, i.e. toms
> > > root boot disk is good. Once in, edit the passwd file to point to a real
> > > shell.
> > >
> > > You might be able to edit it by su. Don't use su - as this will cause it
> > > to try and use the params for root. Without it, it should use the same
> > > environment as the original user but with an effective uid of 0.
> >
> > It does start a new shell though (I just tried it). So unless
> > you have some user available with a valid shell and the
> > ability to edit /etc/passwd, you are going to have to
> > boot the machine some other way to fix this.
> >
> > -- Joe
> >
> > > On Mon, 2002-07-08 at 13:27, Mazukna, Thomas wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I have an issue on my hands.
> > > > the shell specified in passwd for root does not exist.
> > > > how to get into "root" ?
> > > >
> > > > thanks,
> > > > Tomas
> > > >
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> James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
> President and CEO      \          one Linux user         /
> Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
> 770-493-8244             \.___________________________./
> 
> GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
> <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
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-- 
   "Thanks to Microsoft, I am now blind in both eyes. They have
    rolled back in my head so many times this week that they
    are apparently stuck there now."
      - Jonathan Rickman, regarding M$ anti-open-source PR.

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