ric@arizona.edu (Ric Anderson) (06/11/89)
We had an entertaining problem with the first machine we received (came in June 9), with a floptical disk that said "0.9" on it. We plugged the machine in, booted from the floptical, and got up to the "login" window. No way could you get in! Rebooting single user (took some guessing, but fortuanately someone knew about command-`), we found that "me" and "root" were in /etc/passwd with no password specified as expected. Only after much head scratching and bugging the campus support person (who was having identical problems with his machine) did we learn that the "real" password info is in /etc/netinfo/local.nidb/*. Doing an nidump of passwd from that area show NO "me" account, and an encrypted "root" password. We probably lost a day fiddling with this problem (kind of hard to read the man pages and release notes till you are logged in). A third machine that showed up a few days later had an identical looking 0.9 disk, but the file dates/times on it were different, as were the contents of the rc.local file. In addition, this third system booted up with no problems, and logged in as "me". I guess this proves not all 0.9 release optical disks are created equal. Ric Ric Anderson Bitnet: Ric@Arizrvax Member of the Technical Staff Internet: ric@cs.arizona.edu Department of Computer Science AT&T: (602) 621-4048 University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721
ali@polya.Stanford.EDU (Ali T. Ozer) (06/17/89)
In article <11554@megaron.arizona.edu> ric@arizona.edu (Ric Anderson) writes: >We had an entertaining problem with the first machine we received >(came in June 9), with a floptical disk that said "0.9" on it. We >plugged the machine in, booted from the floptical, and got up to the >"login" window. No way could you get in! > >A third machine that showed up a few days later had an identical >looking 0.9 disk, but the file dates/times on it were different, >as were the contents of the rc.local file. In addition, this third >system booted up with no problems, and logged in as "me". > >I guess this proves not all 0.9 release optical disks are created >equal. They're supposed to be. What you observed was a mixup as a result of which a small number of 0.9 disks which contained no "me" accounts were sent out. If you have such a disk, please make sure you get it replaced. Ali Ozer, NeXT Developer Support aozer@NeT.com