'id' failing

[David A. Cobb]

I have needed to tear my system down and start over from the CD a couple 
of times now.  Up until now, it has been successful to save my 
/etc/passwd, /etc/group, and /etc/shadow files so I don't lose my 
(human) accounts. 

This latest time, when I login as "root" everything is fine.  But when I 
assume my normal persona, the bash prompt tells me "I don't have a 
name!"  If I 'ls' my home directory, it shows my (correct) UID#, but not 
my logname.  However, it does find my correct home directory and was 
able to log me in.  The value of environment var "USER" is set 
correctly.  However, if I type 'id' I only get numbers, no names for me 
or for any groups.  Similarly, 'groups' lists only numbers.  If I 
'finger' my logname, from my own account it fails (no such user) -- if I 
'finger' from 'root' it succeeds. 

No great surprise, I get permission problems in several places. 

Just before this particular disaster overtook me, I was beginning to set 
up 'pam'.  Is it likely that libpam is preventing me from retrieving my 
info correctly?  I could tear it out, of course, but I'm a little 
nervous that I'll make things worse.

Can anyone suggest where I should look?

TIA

-- 
David A. Cobb, Software Engineer, Public Access Advocate
"By God's Grace, I am a Christian man; by my actions a great sinner." -- The Way of a Pilgrim: R.French, Tr.
Free at last!  Free at last!  Using Linux, I'm FREE at last!
Life is too short to tolerate crappy software!



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