How to Fix Boot or Login Issues Due to Permission Changes on OS Files (Doc ID 1010298.1)

Last updated on JUNE 09, 2022

Applies to:

Goal

A system may fail to boot properly if permissions, groups and owners are accidentally changed using the chmod and chown commands on operating system files or directories.

Possible errors reported include:

• permission denied errors
• cannot execute /usr/lib/ld.so.1 Killed
• Can't invoke init, error 13 (the system would then panic)
• Filesystem state in superblock wrong

 Or it may not be possible to login into the system:

This document details how to reset the Solaris Operating System permissions, groups and owners back to the default values to allow the system to boot again.

Make certain that you know the system's root file system type and configuration before beginning.
Is the system using UFS or ZFS root?

• If UFS root, you will need to know the system's file system configuration e.g. what OS file systems are configured and the /dev/dsk/c#t#d#s# for each OS file system.
  These may include: /, /usr, /var, /opt
• If ZFS root, you will need to know the pool name for the root pool (the default root pool name is rpool)

Solution

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