unknown user: root

[Marian POPESCU]

Andy Green wrote:

> Marian POPESCU wrote:
>> Hello all,
>> 
>> I am struggling here with the most weird thing to date (for me).
>> These are the facts:
>> I cannot log into my FC5 box.
>> While booting I get lots of error messages: "unknown user: root";
> 
> Sounds like the selinux label for /etc/passwd can be wrong.  Try booting
> with selinux=0 on the kernel commandline and see if everything is the
> same.
> 
> -Andy
Hello Andy,
Thanks for replying!

It's really weird - SELinux was disabled at install time.

The whole story started when I updated my server to the latest and
greatest :-(

 - kernel_2.6.16-1.2111_FC5
 - dbus-0.61-3.fc5.1 and family

After restarting I could login as my ordinary user, but when I tried to
launch yumex - and the dialog for root password showed up - it was
impossible - it already started to say "unknown user : root".

I rebooted, this time I had errors as "unknown user" all the way up to the
login console, where it was impossible to login ...

Reboot again, start the rescue console from the CD, chroot on the system and
nothing; whoami says "cannot find name for user ID 0"; mc will crash as
soon as I try to modify any text file.

I know that the best thing is to reinstall the system, but :
1. I am worried about some security problem - maybe some new kind of worm -
which means the system still contains it
2. Complex and lengthy setup
3. Not much time available, since it was a dev server

Is still there hope for me?
Marian