'sudo' command is broken

Question

I updated an old centrino-notebook after Ubuntu 9.10 with 12.04 - now sudo seem to be broken, because after sudo <whatever> I get the error message:

sudo: unable to initialize PAM: No such file or directory

In /var/log there seem to be no pam*.log file any more.

I cannot use sudo command for to change permissions of /etc files.

I don't recognise pam*.log, but try /var/log/auth.log for more information on what's going on. It looks like some PAM package or other has failed to upgrade; the best way to fix this will involve booting in single-user mode. — Darael, May 21 '13 at 15:18
You may have to do a password recovery.... If this was a fresh install of 12.04, you might want to try again. — belacqua, May 21 '13 at 16:50

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 21 '13 at 15:53

2

Create a file /etc/pam.d/common-session-noninteractive and copy paste the following lines in it

 pkexec nano /etc/pam.d/common-session-noninteractive

Copy & Paste the following lines

 session        [default=1]                     pam_permit.so
 session        requisite                       pam_deny.so
 session        required                        pam_permit.so
 session        required                        pam_unix.so

Save & Exit

Source

answered May 21 '13 at 15:53

Qasim

22,092

thanks for quick answer. I knew that in /etc is to create the file common-session-noninteractive but I cannot get into single-user-mode with shift-key ? shift-key is "dead" on this installation ? – dschinn1001 May 21 '13 at 16:16
can you login to ubuntu desktop session ? if yes open terminal and type the commands – Qasim May 21 '13 at 16:22
/etc - files can be created or modified only as root or as sudo, but I am excluded from sudo ... – dschinn1001 May 21 '13 at 16:25
try with pkexec – Qasim May 21 '13 at 16:26
pkexec is not installed ... – dschinn1001 May 21 '13 at 16:29
apparently package-failure while update from 9.10 to 12.04 - so need simply to reinstall ... but how ? – dschinn1001 May 21 '13 at 16:38
1

boot with live cd and make a file – Qasim May 21 '13 at 16:41
true - how comes this lacking thought ... ? :-P thx. – dschinn1001 May 21 '13 at 16:46

'sudo' command is broken

1 Answers1