Q: Locked self out of server and now very embarrassed
I opened Mac OS X Server on my laptop to remotely admin another Mac OS X Server (the name of that machine is "receptacle").
I had already been sharing the boot volume for "receptacle" and decided to edit the permissions to only allow the "System Administrator (owner)" "Read & Write" access, setting both "Administrators (primary group)" and "Everyone Else" to "No Access" (as shown in the screenshot; don't ask me why I have a screenshot.)
Of course, "receptacle" promptly began behaving very unlike its former self. That is, I'm mostly locked out (I can ssh as root but not as a normal user. Remote admin using Mac OS X Server launches but is pretty much unresponsive. I can no longer edit the File Sharing details for "receptacle".)
I'm not in front of the machine so can't boot into single-user mode (was considering adapting these instructions). However, I will be in front of the machine inside of the next 24 hours.
Can someone please advise whether there is anything I can do remotely and/or what steps I should take when back in front of "receptacle"?
Thanks for considering.
Mac mini, OS X Server, Mid 2011 (5,3)
Posted on Mar 18, 2016 9:19 PM
My personal opinion is it is unwise to share the whole boot volume. Too easy to make mistakes and end up with an inaccessible server.
Anyway, you've been lucky because you can still ssh in. So, if I've understood what you've done, you've changed the permissions of the root directory from what they should be, which is:
sh-3.2# ls -dle@ /
drwxr-xr-x 33 root wheel 1190 19 Mar 10:12 /
so you should be able to change them back using chmod and/or chown.
C.
Posted on Mar 19, 2016 2:51 PM
