/etc/auth/system/default "file is corrupted"

[Ibrahim El-Zawawy]

Compaq Tru64 UNIX V5.1B (Rev. 2650) (DS25) console

login: root
Cannot obtain database information on this terminal


any info. how to solve this problem

[Ibrahim El-Zawawy]

i can access the UNIX through

singel user mode

>>>boot -fl s

[Hein van den Heuvel]

How do you know the file is corrupted?
Could it be an (accidental) misconfiguration of the Enhanced Security.
Were there any recent changes in this space?

Can you restore the relevant files from backup?
Maybe re-create a whole bootable disk from backup and then pull selected security files?

A good manpage to read about the basic files involved authcap. If you can not get to the box now, here is an online pointer:

http://btrcx1.cip.uni-bayreuth.de/cgi-bin/manpages/authcap/4

And if you somehow know the problem is with 'default' then check:
http://btrcx1.cip.uni-bayreuth.de/cgi-bin/manpages/default/4

The following example is a typical system default database:

default:\
:d_name=default:\
:d_secclass=c2:\
:d_boot_authenticate@:\
:d_audit_enable@:\
:d_pw_expire_warning#3456000:\
:u_pwd=*:\
:u_minchg#0:u_maxlen#10:u_exp#15724800:u_life#31449600:\
:u_pickpw:u_genpwd:u_restrict@:u_nullpw@:\
:u_genchars:u_genletters:\
:u_maxtries#5:u_lock:\
:t_logdelay#2:t_maxtries#10:\
:chkent:

Good luck!
Hein.

[Ann Majeske · Accepted solution]

Since the message that you're getting complains about not being able to get information on the terminal, its more likely that your problem is with the ttys database instead of the default database.
You can find information on each of the
Enhanced Security databases in the man pages, e.g. "man default" or "man ttys". The edauth tool can be used to edit entries in any of the Enhanced Security databases. The authck tool can be used to check the internal consistency of any of the Enhanced Security databases.

The default database is a text file, so it should be relatively easy to determine if it is corrupted. The ttys file is a database file (ttys.db), so you would have to access it with the edauth tool and/or the authck tool. For either database, you can try restoring the default version of the file to see if that resolves your problem. Copy the file /etc/auth/system/.new..ttys.db over the ttys.db file. This will restore the ttys file to the default version and remove any customizations that you have done. You can try the same thing with the .new..default and the default file.

Ann

[Ibrahim El-Zawawy]

Thank you for your's help

Ann, your steps was solved the problem directly

Regards