chmod -R is one of the 4 MOST DANGEROUS commands in Unix. The other 3 are: mv, cp -r, and rm -r. There are more than 4,000 files and 1,600, all of which now have bad permissions. You have to change *all* of them back and if you check your production server, you'll a wide variety of values--they are set that way for a reason.
As a rule, 777 should *NEVER* be used for anything!!! New sysadmins often see the permission denied message and (very poor) Unix books will recommend this permission. Here are some issues with 777:
1. Because there is 7 for all other users on the syetem, every file can be trashed by any user and any directory can have it's contents destroyed, accidently or on purpose.
2. There are several special bit settings (1000, 2000 and 4000) which are critical for certain programs to run, not the least of which is login and passwd. The 777 setting wiped out these bits which is why you can never login again.
Permission denied should be dealt with on a specific file or directory, but changed only when there is a good reason. If tghe change was to make other users into sysadmins, read carefully the HP-UX Security book and many similar posts here in the ITRC about 'helping' the HP settings on system files and directories.
As fas as getting things back to normal, if you've a couple of free days, you can change each file and directory one by one, using the production system as a guide. As mentioned, restorin /usr from another server may cause even more problems. That's because /usr/lib and many system-dependent files are present in /usr and it's likely there are different patches on each system. ftp and rcp won't work because they won't run or they won't authenticate.
If you regularly made an Ignite tape backup of the new system, you can indeed restore your system. Otherwise, re-install from scratch.
Bill Hassell, sysadmin
