techniques to fix damaged systems

[Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak]

Todd Denniston wrote:
> Might have been useful to see the actual error message(s).

[root at adama ~]# su - mjc
su: warning: cannot change directory to /home/mjc: Permission denied
su: /bin/bash: Permission denied

The same thing happens to all users, except root. Something is badly 
broken in the login process. X does not start, and text console logins 
also fail.


> does /etc/nologin exist?

No.


> try looking at `man rpm`
> rpm -verify  -a
> 
...
> 
> At least this might reduce the reinstall you do.

Thanks! That's a useful trick to know.



- Mike