/etc/passwd and shadow files deleted

[carlos_83]

By mystake I deleted /etc/passwd and shadow, I don't have any backup, I'm still logged, but how can I do to restore them??? Is there any possible way??

[Steven E. Protter]

You can copy them from another system and then vipw /etc/profile to make changes.

On HP-UX, once its gone, its GONE.

There must be a backup somewhere. Are you running make_tape_recovery or make_net_recovery ? You can restore to a junk system and then copy the files.

SEP

[Cheryl Griffin]

A Data Recovery Specialist may be able to recover the file.

[Helen French · Accepted solution]

Do you have a latest Ignite recovery tape? If yes, you can restore these files from it. If you don't have this and if you donot have a backup(??????) then you may have to start from scratch.

You can find a passwd template from /usr/newconfig/etc/passwd file. If you want to use that, you need to add each user one by one (do you have a printed passwd file atleast?). Remember to set the root password!

[Shannon Petry]

Well, unless you hacked your system, there is no shadow file in HP-UX.

There is a default password file in /usr/newconfig/etc, which you should put in /etc.

Make sure to issue /sbin/passwd root to change root's password.

You will have to re-add users outside of the defaults manually.

There is no such thing as undelete in Unix. Unless you deleted with CDE's file manager anyway. If not, it's gone.

Regards,
Shannon