I agree with Bruce. Whether the OP's problem can be corrected by individually changing ownership really depends on the case. If there're only a few apps installed, e.g., only Apache, PHP, and Oracle (which may be typical), changing ownership back is not a big deal. Everybody makes mistakes. I remember when I was a DBA at a small company in 1999, I accidentally updated all customers' email addresses to the same one, because I forgot the where clause in the SQL! Fortunately, I backed up the table right before the update, as my personal habit. The problem lasted for about 1 minute and was corrected. Since then, when I chat with coworkers about what's the biggest mistake you've ever had, I tell them this story. Yong Huang > Bruce, > > At my University, a person who was getting to know Linux did this > accidentally. In trying to rectify the situation, he was still having > issues accessing certain devices. Unless you have done some script that > parsed your permissions on a fresh install and subsequent updates or you > run a corporate *nix (Apple), you are going to have some strange issues > for quite awhile. Production machines should not have to be in that > situation, so re-installation is the best solution...nuking from orbit > is the only way to be sure! > > Good luck! > > Robert > > bruce wrote: > > david... > > > > why did he need to reinstall the entire system again????? > > > > he changed the owner of everything to some "user". yep, this will be an > > issue to some/alot of things... but depending on the circumstances, he could > > over time figure out which apps/files should be "root" and then figure out > > the rest later on!! > > > > on the other hand, reinstalling might be easier, if he left the > > drive/format/partitions the same.. but it still wouldn't do anything for his > > own apps/files that aren't system provided.. this definitely points to a > > good backup/restore process though... > > > > god knows i walkt the tightrope line enough, with no backup/restore!! > > > > peace -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list