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#1 2018-10-10 20:15:24

OlliC
Member
Registered: 2015-09-28
Posts: 18

Broke my installation completely by removing 'git daemon user'

Hi,

so i was using Arch with Gnome and decided to clean my user list a bit. While doing so i stumpled upon
a 'git daemon user' in the Gnome User Manager tool. This user was not showing up in GDM.

While i was in the flow of cleaning i deleted this user there also, just to make everything looking nice.
Then the problems began. The Gnome UI started acting strangely. Icons in the top bar were missing. Then everything started locking up and i could not even switch tty.

After a restart i was greeted with this:

ERROR: Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist.
Bailing out, you're on your own. Good luck.
sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
[rootfs ]#

After some searching i found this thread where an Antergos user using Cinnamon had exactly the same issue:
https://forum.antergos.com/topic/10709/ … mon-user/6

I am still clueless why this happend. How can deleting a user mess with the system in this way?

Last edited by OlliC (2018-10-10 20:17:07)

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#2 2018-10-10 20:53:36

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 50,012

Re: Broke my installation completely by removing 'git daemon user'

It unlikely did. It's more likely you or that GUI user manager did more than just removing the git user.
Looking at my /etc/passwd, the git user has listed / (the root dir) as its $HOME (what's not uncommon for no-login UIDs), so that supersmart frontend probably decided to also delete the users $HOME, thus your root directory, thus probably *everything*)

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#3 2018-10-10 21:00:54

Xabre
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2009-03-19
Posts: 749

Re: Broke my installation completely by removing 'git daemon user'

Wouldn't you know, I did the same about a week ago. Fortunately, the 'procedure' did not touch my /home/user, as I managed to terminate the process within seconds, or I'd be raging.
I think some update of accounts service caused it, simply git daemon user was not marked as system account, so when you used User Settings in Gnome Control Center to delete the user, it started deleting it's home. Which is /. sudo rm -fr /, but in a fancy GUI style.

What I had to do, and was fairly lucky that pacman db survived too, is to retrieve the list of installed packages from it, delete everything but /home (thank almighty that none of the user data was harmed), and simply reinstall Arch. 20 minutes of my life gone, but you know what they say: if it ain't broken, break it then fix it.

Use live disk/usb to determine how much is lost and what can be salvaged, then proceed accordingly.

Point of the story: 99% of cases is PEBKAC syndrome, never start doing odd stuff without enough time, good supply of coffee, cigarettes, or whichever is the drug of your choice.

Last edited by Xabre (2018-10-10 21:04:49)

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#4 2018-10-10 21:13:36

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,452
Website

Re: Broke my installation completely by removing 'git daemon user'

Xabre wrote:

Point of the story: 99% of cases is PEBKAC

Yes, but in this case the relevant keyboard and chair belong to the author of the software that was used.  I think strongly worded hate-mail to them would be more than justified.  Though a hard-to-muster tact filled bug report might be more effective.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#5 2018-10-10 21:15:54

OlliC
Member
Registered: 2015-09-28
Posts: 18

Re: Broke my installation completely by removing 'git daemon user'

Xabre wrote:

Which is /. sudo rm -fr /, but in a fancy GUI style.

Ok that makes sense. I only wonder why files were still left on /. But i didn't check exactly what was missing.
Also it did not touched my btrfs pool on /mnt/bmain.

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#6 2018-10-10 21:17:10

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 50,012

Re: Broke my installation completely by removing 'git daemon user'

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/File_recovery

Most important: DO NOT WRITE TO THAT DISK. No filesystem check, nothing!
Boot some rescue medium (grml), have some second disk of sufficient size and only ever mount the original filesystems readonly! (Though for most approaches, the partition must not be mounted at all)
If you want to be extra-sure, first clone the disk and only work on the clone.

Pray.

If you've a backup of your data, make a fresh install and restore the backup…

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#7 2018-10-10 21:35:17

OlliC
Member
Registered: 2015-09-28
Posts: 18

Re: Broke my installation completely by removing 'git daemon user'

seth wrote:

If you've a backup of your data, make a fresh install and restore the backup…

Thats what i did already. I just wanted to figure out what was wrong and maybe file a bug report somewhere, because i think
this is a serious issue. Like a big trap hidden inside the user manager.

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