Re: [cobalt-developers] root access problem

[shimi <shimi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, [iso-8859-1] Edgar F. Flores Muņoz wrote:

> Recently when trying to change me to root this error does appear, does
> somebody know to what it is or as I can correct it?
> 
> [admin admin]$ su -
> Password:
> su: warning: cannot change directory to /root: Permission denied
> su: cannot set groups: Operation not permitted
> 
> Ahead of time I thank you the help.
> Ed
> 
In theory, such thing would happen if you remove the suid ("sticky") bit
from the program "su". Why do I say theory? Because it would be stupid to
do so if you're unable to login directly (i.e. you connect to the machine
remotely) - because you block yourself out of root in that case.

Uhm if that's the case, the only way I can think of is to have the machine
booted as single user mode, and chmod +s su back...

If YOU didn't chmod -s su yourself, I would say you got hacked, and the
script kiddie who did that probably set himself some other executable that
will give him root priviliges while you can't get to them. It's a smart
thing to do to cobalts, as it's not easy like in regular servers (who has
a CRT) to login on the console with them - especially for people who take
cobalts as appliance and has no knowledge in linux/computers, and rely on
the GUI.

HTH,

- shimi