How do I recover my remote system from this mistake: sudo chown -R user:group /etc?

Asked Nov 30 '17 at 10:45

Active Nov 30 '17 at 11:38

Viewed 37 times

Using putty, by mistake, I've used this command to change the folder permission /etc:

sudo chown -R ec2-user:ec2-user /etc

Now when I'm trying to restart my Apache server the result is:

$ sudo service httpd restart

sudo: /etc/sudo.conf is owned by uid 500, should be 0
sudo: /etc/sudoers is owned by uid 500, should be 0
sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin

How to recover of this situation? I don't have physical access, but I have WinSCP and I can change permission directly.

edited Nov 30 '17 at 11:38

pa4080

29,831

asked Nov 30 '17 at 10:45

JD The Real Hero

1

Why you have changed the ownership of /etc !? – pa4080 Nov 30 '17 at 11:03
by mistake i chage after set default set – JD The Real Hero Nov 30 '17 at 11:09
It is interesting - is it possible to recover from this mistake while you don't have physical access to the system. – pa4080 Nov 30 '17 at 11:10
Please rewrite the question in this way. – pa4080 Nov 30 '17 at 11:11
Do you have physical access to the computer? – pa4080 Nov 30 '17 at 11:18
i have winscp i can change permission directy – JD The Real Hero Nov 30 '17 at 11:23
@JDTheRealHero Isn't there a 'serial console' option in the VPS control panel? – pa4080 Nov 30 '17 at 12:45
See the answer I posted in https://askubuntu.com/questions/43621/what-if-i-accidentally-run-command-chmod-r-on-system-directories-etc (last answer) . NOTE - It would be nice if my answer were upvoted so that when referencing the Q/A the first thing people see is a working solution rather than "you cant fix this, you have to reinstall" , which is not the case. – Panther Nov 30 '17 at 15:15

How do I recover my remote system from this mistake: sudo chown -R user:group /etc?

0 Answers0