Cpanel: I inadvertently messed up entire permissions on my VPS, any idea how to fix?

Discussion in 'Site & Server Administration' started by Danny, Jun 30, 2010.

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  1. #1
    I was just running a CHOWN and got trigger happy and hit enter when i didnt mean to. As a result I just ran

    CHOWN -R user:user /

    on my VPS, no i cant access anything from cpanel. I can get in there I just cant use any functions like phpMyAdmin etc.

    This is an absolute emergency, I need to get into the database or at least somehow get in back in to backup and just rebuild.

    This will be my major stupid mistake I have done this year I think

    Does anyone know the permissions I need to reset or is there a script that fixes the cpanel permissions so i can at least get in and access cpanel properly again?

    Thanks for you help

    Dan
     
    Danny, Jun 30, 2010 IP
  2. alan_smithee

    alan_smithee Active Member

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    #2
    try
    CHOWN -R root:root /
     
    alan_smithee, Jun 30, 2010 IP
  3. madaboutlinux

    madaboutlinux Member

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    #3
    This isn't a solution. There are whole lot of files/directories having various ownership and unless everything is fixed, some OR other things won't work. I have came across many such people who have done the same mistake and the only solution is to have their server re-installed. Manually changing of ownership of all files/directories is tedious + you should know what ownership should a directory and the files inside it should have.
     
    madaboutlinux, Jul 1, 2010 IP
  4. alan_smithee

    alan_smithee Active Member

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    #4
    yes but in this case he want to take backup of his server, not just reinstall it.
    best way is to zip the whole home folder then manually backup the dabatase from ssh
     
    alan_smithee, Jul 1, 2010 IP
  5. madaboutlinux

    madaboutlinux Member

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    #5
    Yes, while recommending a re-install it is assumed that the client have a backup OR he will take a backup before proceeding, since a re-installation wipes out everything...
     
    madaboutlinux, Jul 2, 2010 IP
  6. anands

    anands Well-Known Member

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    #6
    The best thing to do with is to ask DC for help or hire a professional administrator. If you feel backup and restore would be simpler task, re-install would be a better solution.
     
    anands, Jul 2, 2010 IP
  7. HostXNow

    HostXNow Active Member

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    #7
    You could copy all of your data from the VPS to an Offsite Backup account using Rsync, and then just reinstall the VPS. Once done that you can then copy data from Offsite Backup account back to the VPS and correct the permissions as you go along.

    You could get a system admin to do this for you.
     
    HostXNow, Jul 4, 2010 IP
  8. mubashirnisar

    mubashirnisar Banned

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    #8
    well redo the command,
    if you ran this command chown -R user1:user2 /
    then do this command to revert it chown -R user2:user1 /


    issue will be resolved
     
    mubashirnisar, Jul 6, 2010 IP