Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!rex!rouge!pc!ewsres15 From: ewsres15@pc.usl.edu (Vignes Gerard M) Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc Subject: Re: Brain Teaser Message-ID: <15937@rouge.usl.edu> Date: 5 Oct 90 07:56:28 GMT References: Sender: anon@rouge.usl.edu Organization: Univ. of Southwestern La., Lafayette Lines: 16 Originator: ewsres15@pc.usl.edu In article mike@x.co.uk (Mike Moore) writes: >Here's one (do NOT actually do this, it appears to be lethal): >now assume that *everyone* is set to use /bin/sh (including root), how >do you get out of this without rebuilding the operating system? I don't >think there actually is one..... but.... I once loaded an operating system and foolishly set the default shell to KSH before bothering to load the KSH binary. Even more foolishly, I then logged out, and was greeted by a cannot execute type message when I tried to log back in. I gave up after about an hour and reloaded the system. Thinking back, I had the networking software going and probably could have FTP'd the KSH binary (or a new copy of /etc/passwd) over as root. I'm not certain if this would have worked, but I know that it was a real PITA to reload the system, and I felt pretty silly about it afterwards.