Sudo Failed

[Old Rocker]

On Thursday 05 Jan 2006 18:11, Old Rocker wrote:

> I did not think of that, but I should have done!
>
> However, if I cannot use sudo, how do I access my hosts file which
> has root permissions?

Well, here's confession time, but I hope useful for anybody in the same 
state as I was!

Its clear I had installed a hosts file for getting ride of all sorts of 
parasites, but I did not keep the same information as in the original 
file on Ubuntu.  Instead of keeping

127.0.0.1	localhost		(right for Windows)

you have to make sure that the first uncommented line of your hosts file 
is:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost ubuntu	(right for Ubuntu with 
the default host name)

Now, this was the first thing I did wrong, but it didn't affect me until 
I tried to sudo some days after it was done.  If you do that the system 
will not recognise your hostname as allowed, which was my problem.

Now, /etc/hosts has root privileges, so how are you to alter it?  Joyce 
Markoll put me on the right road here: the best way is to use a live CD 
that allows you to run it with root privileges.  After some fumbling 
through my collection of live Cds, I found the best to use was 
SimplyMEPIS.  You can download an .iso file for free at 
http://www.mepis.org/node/1462

Sadly, my writer gave up the ghost, so I'm left with a reader, and I 
can't burn CDs anymore, but if you can I recommend you download 
the .iso file.  It was MUCH easier to get into the system using 
SimplyMEPIS than Ubuntu Live, Knoppix and Slax.

Amending the hosts file did the trick and I'm thankful for everybody who 
gave me help.  Another confession: no, in a fit of lethergy and 
idleness I didn't look for the answer on the web.  If I had, I would 
have seen a number of entries for this problem, and a number of entries 
all pointing to the hosts file.

Thanks again to all who helped!

-- 

Old Rocker