I hate myself for suggesting something like that: but do you have an up-to-date kernel? If the machine is running for awhile, and isn't updated, you could try and find a privilege-escalation-exploit in "the usual sources". I once rooted a box that was given to me from a customer where the root has disappeared (was a fedora core, not patched), which also turned a weekend flying around into a free weekend :)
not pretty, but the only thing that is likely to happen in such a situation is machine crash. but I hope you are prepared for that, at least. <lecture> next time you leave a machine in a housing center buy the admin a beer, then he'll remember you, when you call and ask him to add you to the root group from the local console usermod -G root yourusername even a windows admin in town could login and type that for you. </lecture> extreme care, and good backups should be applied when using exploits from doubious sources. matthias On 17.02.2007, at 15:52, Timothy Robnett wrote: > On 2/17/07, Ariën Huisken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> As a non-root user when I try to su to another account on my system >>> which I know the password for I am receiving the error "su: >>> incorrect >>> password" after entering the correct password. To confirm I really >>> know the password I can from the same system ftp to localhost and >>> succesffully authenticate. What is it I don't understand about su in >>> this situation? >> >> This users has to be a member of the root group. > > Would someone please confirm what I already believe to be true? I > modified my sudoers file but of course being a newbie I made a mistake > on line 27 and now sudo won't parse the file thus it dies. I have > three working accounts on the box but none of them are in the root > group thus I can't su to root. Root logins are disabled for SSH and in > vsFTPd thus I can't use those tools to replace my screwed up sudoers > file. Root logins are disabled for imap4 and not quite sure what I > would do witht that access even if they weren't since that would throw > me in ito the ~/Maildir/ folder anyhow. > > So does that pretty much leave me with boarding a plane and flying to > my server so I can get console access and boot from new media? I don't > suppose there is anyway to get sudo to overlook the typo at the end of > the file to process my access that is 5-10 lines higher in the file is > there? > > Thanks all, and feel free to lecture me as you reply. I know I deserve > it for this blunder. > > -- > Regards, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _______________________________________________ > tsl-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.trustix.org/mailman/listinfo/tsl-discuss _______________________________________________ tsl-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.trustix.org/mailman/listinfo/tsl-discuss
