Administrator privileges screwed after deleting etc & var alias

[mickey79]

Ave,

Alright, yesterday by mistake I deleted the etc & var aliases - the two hidden files that sit on the macintosh hd root folder. Of course my system wouldn't work after that, rebooting to an ugly unix prompt saying things like "/etc/master.passwd: no such file or directory".

Following this article (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...tnum=106908-en), I was able to restore the etc & var alias, and my system started working again.

Partially, though. Well, the system is running fine - except that some applications or services that require Authentication (You know that something that box pops-up which says enter your administrative password to proceed) .. well when I put in my Admin Password - it doesn't work. It doesn't say that it's the wrong password - it just says something like "You need administrative privileges" ... something to that effect.

I'm trying install my Printer as my Printer had completely stopped working. I can't even install it because it's giving me that error.

Any suggestions?

[Giaguara]

Those folders were not empty. So even if there are empty folders now there, there are a lot of functionalities missing.

If you are running 10.4, run the latest 10.4.10 Combo installer - hopefully that will fix the missing files for you. Intel combo if you are on an Intel Mac, PPC if on a pre-Intel. And if in 10.3, the 10.3.9 combo updater.
Those can be downloaded from Apple's webpage.

[mickey79]

Running 10.3.9 Panther on Power Mac G5... so downloading the 10.3.9 Combo Updater from Apple as I type this. Will write back after Install to see what happens.
PS: Is this the April 15, 2005 Combo Updater?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Giaguara

Those folders were not empty. So even if there are empty folders now there, there are a lot of functionalities missing.

If you are running 10.4, run the latest 10.4.10 Combo installer - hopefully that will fix the missing files for you. Intel combo if you are on an Intel Mac, PPC if on a pre-Intel. And if in 10.3, the 10.3.9 combo updater.
Those can be downloaded from Apple's webpage.

[mickey79]

It didn't work.
Ran the combo updater, restarted, still the same.

Right now there are two places where I'm having a problem, and I don't know if there are problems in any other areas or not because everything else seems to be working fine, including Administrative Authentication.

One is PureFTPD Manager. I had it installed and running fine before all this happened. Now, it doesn't work. I click on it - and it just doesn't launch. It's one of those applications that required Authentication to launch. It doesn't even come up with the Authentication Box.

Second is, I'm trying to install my Printer, and it won't let me. As soon as I click the Installer - it brings up the Authentication box - I enter my root password - and this is what I get:


So what next?

[Giaguara]

Hm.. so this is on your admin user right??

cups in under /etc so printing would be explained with that
And that master pasword, xinetd ...

And there are plenty of things in /var that will cause problems if missing : cron, audit, samba, log, root, launchd

I hoped the Combo updater would have been able to install those missing pieces. Looks like it wasn't enough, and pieces are still missing.
In theory youl could find the missing files from somewhere else, however those would not work copied over as most of them will be customized for your system.
So OS X install ...

Archive and install, and import the data from the previous systems folder, or if you can, backup all user files and do a clean install.

Sucks to have to do a new install of OS X but getting those files from someone else's system would just give more problems than you have now with the system, and the Combo install was the option before the new installs. At least all your user files are safe, so we didn't lose any of them.

[mickey79]

Well, before I do that, here's what I don't understand.

I only deleted the "Alias" to the etc & var folders - not the actual etc & var folder. Both etc & var have an alias that have to reside in the root directory, and by mistake I deleted those Alias files, which according to this article (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...tnum=106908-en) renders the Mac useless and gives the error I was getting.

So what I don't understand is - Why are there other files missing on my system? Like I said, I only deleted the Alias - Not the actual folder!

And secondly, NO - this problem is only happening on the regular User (who has admin rights). If I login to my "Root" account using the Root User & Password - Everything Works!!! Including PureFTPD Manager & Installation of the printer. But when I log back into my regular User Account, which is what I usually use - That's when all these problems are happening. Please note that this User Does Have Admin Privileges as specified in the "User Accounts" panel of the System Preferences. And I was always able to put in the root password in the "Authentication Box" whenever I tried to run something on this regular User account.

Any clues?

[Giaguara]

Hmm...
Make an /etc alias that goes to /private/etc
and /var to /private/var

[mickey79]

Originally Posted by Giaguara

Hmm...
Make an /etc alias that goes to /private/etc
and /var to /private/var

Well technically that Article I linked to did exactly this for me, i.e., recreate those two aliases. But regardless, I just deleted those two aliases again, while staying in the Finder Window - and then recreated the two aliases.

Again same thing. Printer & PureFTPD Manager still not working. And everything still works absolutely fine in the "Root" Account.

Which is making me think - is there anyway that I can reinitialize my regular account - OR - is there anyway I can give all "Root" Account privileges/properties to my regular account?

I tried creating another User Account - but that does the same thing. Only the "Root" account is working normal - doing everything it should. There should be a solution to this without doing an Archive & Install.

I do appreciate your help man - thanks.