techniques to fix damaged systems

[Todd Denniston]

Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak wrote, On 09/18/2008 12:47 PM:
> Hi all,
> 
> One of my F9 systems experienced a utility power failure, and now 
> non-root users can't log in. Googling based on the errors suggests that 
> some critical library file has probably become corrupted. Could be 
> anything, really.
> 

Might have been useful to see the actual error message(s).

does /etc/nologin exist?

> In cases like this I usually do
> 
> rpm -qa | xargs yumdownloader
> rpm -Uvh --force *.rpm
> 
> to re-install every single rpm. In theory, it should end up pretty much 
> in the same state. It's worked well before, anyway.
> 
> Is this the slickest method to rescue a limping system? Are there less 
> hacky methods? I could re-install from cd/dvd or a revisor iso, but that 
> seems to increase the odds of clicking the wrong button and overwriting 
> my data...
> 

try looking at `man rpm`
rpm -verify  -a

IIRC if you get "........C" for all files in a package, then there no need to 
re-install.  If you get something else, then you need to decide if the file in 
question should be expected to be different than originally installed, such as 
/etc/issue from fedora-release.

At least this might reduce the reinstall you do.

> Tips welcome!
> 
> 
> - Mike
> 


-- 
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter