On 16-Nov-99 John Summerfield wrote:
>> system's related stuff about unix in general). I had
>> installed redhat 6.0 sometime back but recently it had
>> started to give me some problems. Like when I try to
>> logout by clicking "logout" it doesn't let me.
>> "Someone" told me that linux stores some
>> configurations files to restore your system back to
>> its state of last login when you re-login and
>> sometimes this restoration takes a long time. I don't
>> know how much of that is true (or even if I said it

        I don't know either. I do know that it does save
        information when you logout - but that only applies
        to the current user and this information is saved
        in the user's home directory. /etc contains
        system configuration files. Specifically it saves
        your desktop settings etc.

        If Red Hat really saves 'the last working configuration'
        I think it does that during the bootup sequence. I don't
        know how to recover that though. Actually, if there is
        such a thing, you might be able to recover from that.
        Is there?

>> correct) but I started to delete some .conf files in
>> the /etc directory (by switching as root) it worked
> Oh muck.

> Not all are critical for my system's
> operation. Some that are might not be fixed by the action I've outlined;
> This comes to mind:
>    /etc/resolv.conf

        host.conf, ld.so.conf, modules.conf, pwdb.conf, isapnp.conf(if you
        want to use your soundcard), syslog.conf for normal operation

        Missing ld.so.conf might prevent you to run some of the
        executables on your system. Namely executables using
        runtime libraries in non-standard locations.

        Missing modules.conf propably prevents your network from
        working and in general makes life very difficult for any
        additional hardware(including network cards etc.) It contains
        information about loadable modules(i.e. hardware drivers).

        Missing pwdb.conf might prevent you from logging in to the
        system - including root. It contains information on where
        to get the user information.

        In general: deleting *.conf from /etc makes life very difficult -
        Linux effectively looses most information for your hardware,
        network setup, user security etc. Sorry to say this, but
        recovering them might require a re-install of the system. 
        You might succeed by running linuxconf and configuring all
        over again - if you can login. The files in /etc are somewhat
        (well, pretty far but have somewhat the same effect) as the system
        registry in Windows.

        You might also try to reinstall all the rpm packages. Although,
        again, you first need to login ... or you can rewrite them by
        hand - which means you should know which ones you need, what
        they do, how to write them etc. .. and you need to be able to
        login ...

        After you have recovered from this incident, BTW, (which isn't
        that difficult after all, just takes some time ...) I suggest
        you specifically don't remove any files from /etc unless you
        first know what the file does. I wonder who and why anyone
        suggested it in the first place.


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