Chmod 644 on /etc/ any way to fix?

I tried to tab complete something and I guess it wasnt there. I know you are not supposed to set the permissions to /etc/ like that, but my permissions seem to be all messed up. whoami prints out cannot find name for user ID 1002 and I cannot cd into /etc/ anymore. passwd and shadow use 640 and 644 so I am not sure why this is a problem. Regardless, is there any way to fix this?

The command run was sudo chmod 644 /etc/

I have no name!@vpn-server:/$ whoami
whoami: cannot find name for user ID 1002


I have no name!@vpn-server:/$ cd etc
bash: cd: etc: Permission denied

I have no name!@vpn-server:/$ ls -al etc
d????????? ? ? ? ?                ? .
d????????? ? ? ? ?                ? ..
d????????? ? ? ? ?                ? acpi
-????????? ? ? ? ?                ? adduser.conf

I have no name!@vpn-server:/$ sudo su
sudo: can't open /etc/sudoers: Permission denied

Franz Payer

Posted 2012-10-08T02:47:42.287

Reputation: 205

Your question is very unclear. What exactly is the problem? Did someone type chmod 644 /etc? Did they add a -R in there as well? What happened specifically? – UtahJarhead – 2012-10-08T03:02:11.477

there was no -R. The command was: sudo chmod 644 /etc/ – Franz Payer – 2012-10-08T03:05:14.220

Answers

First off all your question is unclear. but still see this...

your /etc directory permission is 644 ie:chmod 644 /etc/

To change Directory execute permission is required

That's why you are getting this error

I have no name!@vpn-server:/$ cd etc

bash: cd: etc: Permission denied

so change the permission to chmod 755 /etc

2nd thing ls -al showing this type of output (d????????? ? ? ? ?) because

I have no name!@vpn-server:/$ ls -al etc
d????????? ? ? ? ?                ? .
d????????? ? ? ? ?                ? ..
d????????? ? ? ? ?                ? acpi
-????????? ? ? ? ?                ? adduser.conf

To long list a directory read and execute permission is required for directory.

For below error just post /etc/passwd file entry for the id 1002

I have no name!@vpn-server:/$ whoami

whoami: cannot find name for user ID 1002

max

Posted 2012-10-08T02:47:42.287

Reputation: 3 329

If the permissions were set on /etc itself to be 644 then just type this: chmod 755 /etc

If the permissions were set recursively... you've got a much deeper problem than just that.

UtahJarhead

Posted 2012-10-08T02:47:42.287

Reputation: 1 755

Yah, I don't have permissions to do that. Was chmod 644 /etc/ the same as chmod 644 /etc -r ? – Franz Payer – 2012-10-08T03:17:04.040

No, it is not the same as -R (capital R). If -R had been specified, it also would have hosed up pretty much any config file your system uses. Fixing that would be nigh impossible to do correctly. Since it's only /etc, just change the perms to 755 and you SHOULD be golden. – UtahJarhead – 2012-10-08T12:16:23.140