[coulterp]

Linux CentOS 4.2 (Linux/Win 98SE dual boot) with Linux 2.6.9-22.0.2.EL #1 Tue Jan 17 06:51:40 CST 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Apologies in advance for the long post, but I'm trying to capture all the details.

I tinkered around with my system last weekend to enable sudo for some users and add a new backup user. I used the Applications / System Settings / User And Groups facility on the desktop GUI. It appeared to go fine; sudo works as required for the user(s) defined and the backup user works. But something didn't go quite right. Now when I re-boot the system I get the following message:

"cyrus: preparing databases: id cannot find name for userID 76".

The rest of the boot sequence completes with no errors and the system comes up and allow access, is running the web-server, etc etc. But when I log in as a typical user displayed on the desktop is the icon "somebody's Home" rather than the " Home" icon. UserID 76 is indeed cyrus: but I did not knowingly make any alterations to that user account and indeed it is there in the passwd file.

I've check out the passwd and group files and they look fine and as expected. The fact that I've logged in as a named user and used the correct passed and I've got on proves validation is happening OK, but the desktop has this unusually named icon. If I drill into the icon I see the that for files and folders they show only 501/100 for the username/group pair not the expected names.

If I remote into the account (say using PuTTY from a Windows box) the logon validation again goes OK as per above and I can logon but the the PuTTY window displays following for the prompt (the shell defines the prompt to be @:

login as: user
user@192.168.xxx.xxx's password:
Last login: Sat Apr 8 09:17:38 2006 from 192.168.xxx.xxx
...
id: cannot find name for user ID 501
id: cannot find name for group ID 100
id: cannot find name for user ID 501
[I have no name!@myHost ~]$

Instead of displaying the user name the string "I have no name!" is displayed. All userIDs are affected (at keast all the ones I would normally have logging in.

But as already noted the user ID and Group IDs shown are both showing in the passwd and group files respectively because I checked that out. However file/folder ownership is not displayed correctly:

[I have no name!@myHost ~]$$ ls -la
total 44700
drwx------ 41 501 100 4096 Apr 7 23:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 0 0 4096 Apr 2 15:38 ..
-rw------- 1 501 100 0 Apr 17 2005 .autorun.lck
-rw------- 1 501 100 14295 Apr 8 09:17 .bash_history
...
etc, etc, etc

There are other side-effects:

• screensaver password protection on the screens does not run.
• I can more files or cp them.
• But I cannot vi a file.

Anyone any ideas how I can repair the situation?
TIA.

[linuxphile]

What are the permissions of /etc/passwd?
This file should be world readable.

[coulterp]

D'oh. I hadn't looked at that. I shall give it a go when I am next able to access the server. I'm pretty sure I set it to 0600: I assume 0644 is more approriate. Thanks.

[coulterp]

Thanks linuxphile - that did the business!