I just got a RH Linux 7.1 dedicated server and played with it and got my root user deleted.

I used Opera 7 on Win 2K. After I deleted a normal user in Webmin, the users list still showed the user I just deleted. So, I clicked on the user again and this time the form showed all fields blanked. I clicked on deleted. Back to the users listing, clicked refresh and the user was still there. Repeated a few times to no avail so I gave up and logged out.

After that I could not login Webmin as root. SSH to server and tried to su but got error saying there is no user root exist. Checked /etc/passwd and root is indeed gone.

I don't have any superuser on the server. Any hope for me? Please help advise.

Thanks
Jing Wee :bawling: :bawling: :bawling:

Format/restore - or if it's an older unpatched kernel you could use the ptrace exploit and gain root that way.

tell the techs @ the colo to reboot it into single user mode and adduser root and go in and change the passwd\shadow file to give it UID\GID 0:0 then set a pw for it. Although, this is all assuming you can even go about the single-user mode w/o a root account, as I'm not 100% sure.

Get the OS reinstalled.. thats what i would do..

Originally posted by neufusion
tell the techs @ the colo to reboot it into single user mode and adduser root and go in and change the passwd\shadow file to give it UID\GID 0:0 then set a pw for it. Although, this is all assuming you can even go about the single-user mode w/o a root account, as I'm not 100% sure.

I think that would work. At least i know it works if you forget your root password.. ;)

hmm I wonder how it happened