<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 20 December 2010 15:26, Matthew Wild <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mwild1@gmail.com">mwild1@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div></div><div class="h5">On 20 December 2010 15:17, Gordon Burgess-Parker <<a href="mailto:gbplinux@gmail.com">gbplinux@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> On 20/12/10 15:08, Simon Greenwood wrote:<br>
><br>
> The issue with Windows is that there is a database at the core of the<br>
> authentication mechanism, and this database can get damaged. Unix and Linux<br>
> are essentially based on flat files which can be edited with the correct<br>
> permissions. It is possible to damage /etc/passwd and/or /etc/shadow in such<br>
> a way as to cause authentication failure, and also to corrupt your user<br>
> space in such a way as to damage user configuration files, but it's also a<br>
> lot easier to recover them.<br>
><br>
> s/<br>
><br>
> Ah. That makes things a bit clearer. Are there any "Howtos" as to how a<br>
> (relative) newbie can recover from these sorts of damage?<br>
><br>
<br>
</div></div>If it was a common problem I'm sure there would be :)<br>
<br>
To be honest the answer is just to make backups, and that's something<br>
you should do regardless of the OS you use. Then just restore any<br>
damaged files from backups.<br>
<br>
I don't know about anyone else on this list, but I've never seen such<br>
corruption as we're discussing. Sure it can happen in theory, e.g. I<br>
could open the system file up in my text editor (if I have root<br>
access) and write some gibberish there. Otherwise I'm not sure how it<br>
would happen - poorly coded software running as root could do it, but<br>
I've never encountered such software that would write to e.g.<br>
/etc/passwd.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>Right enough, but it's not impossible, just highly unlikely...<br><br>s/</div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Twitter: @sfgreenwood<br>"Is this your sanderling?"<br><br>