"destroyed" my home directory? (not rm -rf'ed)

0xmac · 2023-07-08 23:11:25

Hello a newby here,

So story time i guess, to make a few things clear.
I use arch with KDE Plasma
I was on a new arch install (like 1 week old, not my first),
and had a few permission problems with my home directory

Things like, not being able to make folders in Dolphin and so on

With my little knowledge I have, I turned to chmod (idk why)

So I happily typed "sudo chmod -rwx ~" into my terminal
and stared at the screen, as it began to flicker like crazy

Okay, reboot. Didn't fix.
Though my system starts just fine, I can't get any further than my SDDM Login

I tried booting from an external arch os, to chmod 700
my home directory from there, but no

So, I turn to you guys, to hopefully fix my issue,
because I don't want to reinstall arch once again and
configure everything from scratch

Thanks in advance

Trilby · 2023-07-08 23:33:58

So you removed all permissions for your user to your home folder?

0xmac wrote:

I tried booting from an external arch os, to chmod 700 my home directory from there, but no

No what? Please complete this thought as that would be the correct approach. Though you shouldn't need an "external arch" - just switch into a tty and log in as root.

Last edited by Trilby (2023-07-08 23:35:33)

0xmac · 2023-07-09 00:00:36

With "no" I meant, nothing changed. Still can't properly log in.

Since, I'm a newbie I of course tried things before properly researching them first.
(when my system was already down) I tried chmod 700 and after that 777.
But, it changed nothing.

I would log into a TTY, but I can't for some reason.
I tried Ctrl+Alt+F2, but my SDDM layout is for US (enough for passwords)
but my physical one is german. But not sure, if it's compatible.

With "external arch OS", I meant the arch install iso.
I just mounted my drive partition to /mnt and arch-chroot'ed into it.

Trilby · 2023-07-09 00:44:51

0xmac wrote:

I would log into a TTY, but I can't for some reason.

You cant log in to root at a tty or you can't even get to a tty? Worst case you could boot into single-user mode (or rescue.target).

0xmac wrote:

I tried Ctrl+Alt+F2, but my SDDM layout is for US (enough for passwords)
but my physical one is german. But not sure, if it's compatible.

What do you mean "compatible"? Being able to swtich vts does not depend on keyboard layout. It might require a different key combination at most, though I doubt even that's the case with German layouts.

When you refer to previously attempting to chmod the directory, did the change actually take? What's the output of `stat` on your user's home directory now? Please post the exact command and output when you check. If you need to type it manually a command that gives shorter output such as the following would be fine:

stat -c '%a %U %n' /home/YOURUSERNAME

Last edited by Trilby (2023-07-09 00:45:45)

0xmac · 2023-07-09 08:01:23

Trilby wrote:

stat -c '%a %U %n' /home/username

The output I got is "0 username /home/username"

oh....
the problem was just on my side

I chmod 777 my /home folder, but actually
I needed to chmod my /home/username folder

Okay, im sorry for such a mistake

Thank you so much Trilby for Helping

seth · 2023-07-09 10:16:42

Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

Trilby · 2023-07-09 13:55:00

I'm glad it's working - now you may want to adjust it slightly still. Common defaults are 0700 or 0755. While group writability doesn't seem to concerning, I'd not want to leave the world-writable bit (which is part of the last 7).

Arch Linux

#1 2023-07-08 23:11:25

"destroyed" my home directory? (not rm -rf'ed)

#2 2023-07-08 23:33:58

Re: "destroyed" my home directory? (not rm -rf'ed)

#3 2023-07-09 00:00:36

Re: "destroyed" my home directory? (not rm -rf'ed)

#4 2023-07-09 00:44:51

Re: "destroyed" my home directory? (not rm -rf'ed)

#5 2023-07-09 08:01:23

Re: "destroyed" my home directory? (not rm -rf'ed)

#6 2023-07-09 10:16:42

Re: "destroyed" my home directory? (not rm -rf'ed)

#7 2023-07-09 13:55:00

Re: "destroyed" my home directory? (not rm -rf'ed)

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