Freckles asked:
Possible Duplicate:
Why is “chmod -R 777 /” destructive?
I have CentOS 6.3 minimal installed. No desktop or GUI. All the while, I was able to login as root. Today, I come to work and find the same password no longer works. I was the only one who knew the password and no one in the office touches this machine. I have verified it using CCTV.
When I enter the password it gives me the following error:
centos2 login: root
Password:
Login incorrect
I have tried SSH via Putty as well as WinSCP. I get Network Error: Connection refused.
So what could have gone wrong?
Please advise.
Please Note: root is the only user on this machine. I have not made any other user yet. Or maybe I did but I cannot remember since I have been using root for several days now.
UPDATE:
I tried to reset the password following the instructions on some other site. All went well, except I get the same error despite changing the password!
UPDATE:
This server is my test server and I try a lot of things on it. The last major thing I did was to select all the directories in WinSCP and give them 777 permissions. Could this have anything to do with the problem?
My answer:
Congratulations, you broke it beyond repair. Your only option at this point is to recover what data you can (try booting from a Live CD) and rebuild the server from scratch.
View the full question and any other answers on Server Fault.
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