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I messed up chmod (set all to 644 by a stupid accident) and now I am locked out of the admin account. I tried this and created an emergency account successfully but when I try to log in I am stuck in a log in loop.

Is there any way to fix this or do I have to apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop? I am using a VMware remote console to access the computer.

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    I'm pretty sure you need root privilege (through either sudo or by root login) to use apt-get that way.
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Oct 17, 2016 at 13:40
  • I have access to the shell through recovery mode. Will that work?
    – Pawel
    Oct 17, 2016 at 13:42
  • yes you can fix it in recovery, but what exactly did you chmod? if it was EVERYTHING (using -R flag) you have a long battle ahead - might be easier to get your personal files backed up and reinstall
    – Zanna ♦
    Oct 17, 2016 at 13:43
  • I ran sudo chmod 664 / thinking it would only chmod the files in the current folder. How stupid. Will reinstalling ubuntu-desktop through the shell reinstall everything with correct permissions etc? I don't have much on that system, mainly just apache but all files are backed up on git.
    – Pawel
    Oct 17, 2016 at 13:46

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Phew, I managed to fix it. I realised that I had only changed the permissions of the / folder, not recursively. What I did is I went into the recovery mode and into the root shell. Then ran mount -o remount,rw / and sudo chmod 755 /.

That'll teach me a lesson to be much more careful with chmod.

Thanks @Zanna for the help.

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  • glad you fixed it, +1 for working it out yourself
    – Zanna ♦
    Oct 18, 2016 at 8:16

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