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Groups > comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc > #1956

Re: /etc/master.passwd: No such file or directory -sh-2.05b#

Cross-posted to 3 groups.

Followups directed to: comp.sys.mac.system

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On 2016-04-09, Micky <NONONObobbyburns1111@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It's me again.   I put the previous Mac in the other room to make room
> for the other one my friend had, and I've been working on that. 
>
> All the problems below are solved, but I feel like telling you my tale
> of woe.   Oh, and yes, I do have one question that follows the line of
> **********
>
> Started up fine at my friend's apartment, but gave one error after
> another before completion of startup at my place.   Each time I had to
> hold down the On button to get it to turn off, and then try again. 
>
> Finally it started up and I was able to look at his files and his
> email so far, but coudlnt' connect to the net (another story, largely
> my mistake).  But it was so hard to start, I left it on all night. 
>
> The screen stayed at full brightness all night and all day, 
>
> And when, or maybe soon after, I started to use it, the mouse stopped
> moving (and I didn't know any keyboard commands to use).  I tried
> another mouse and another, and not only wouldnt' they move the cursor,
> their lasers didn't even light up.    I also tried all 3 of the USB
> ports, but no change. 
>
> So I gave up and turned it off.  
>
> When I turned it on the next day, it gave
>
> /etc/master.passwd: No such file or directory
> -sh-2.05b#

If you are seeing command-line message during boot, either you started
up the computer in verbose mode manually by holding down Command-V
during startup, or the system is set to always boot in verbose mode. The
latter is done through a command-line utility called nvram that sets a
special firmware variable named boot-args to -v (for verbose mode).

Enable: sudo nvram boot-args="-v"
Disable: sudo nvram boot-args=

Anyhow, at this point, I would have checked to see if /etc/master.passwd
in fact did not exist. 

Several items - including /etc - are soft links to directories in
/private. 

> 6 times in a row!!  Very early in startup. 

Not a good sign.

> Restarting a 6th time didn't seem like it would help so I googled the
> error message, and a couple hits just said, Take it for repair. A
> couple more gave detailed instructions for fixing it. As follows:
>
> [snip]
>
> Step 8 sort of amazes me:  Type: ln -s /private/var var
> Is that all that is needed to recreate a file that was missing, a
> "symbolic link, the UNIX equivalent of a Mac alias or Windows short
> cut"??????  Seems like it creates the file, but no contents for
> it!!!!!  If it's a link, what does it link to? 

You can think of links in Unix as roughly equivalent in function to
aliases in Mac OS. It's a file that points to some other file or
directory. If it points to a directory, then in most cases it behaves
like that directory - namely, if you cd into it or use ls to list the
contents, you see the contents of the target directory to which the link
points. Note that links are not as robust or flexible as Mac OS aliases in some
important ways. Anyhow, the ln command-line tool is what creates a link.
Besides the -s switch that tells ln to create a *soft* link rather than
a hard one, the command takes two arguments: the target file/directory
to which you want the link to point, and then the path name of the new
link you want to create. 

> And why did it disappear?

Your friend somehow deleted it.

> Why does this file and var disappear so commonly that there are
> several webpages saying how to recreate them? 

It's not common at all. My guess is those people deleted them by
accident or out of ignorance. Perhaps they deleted it while viewing
files that are normally invisible in Finder windows. Or perhaps they
deleted it accidentally while typing commands in a terminal window. The
command-line in Unix systems can be extremely powerful; one wrong entry
can cause serious data loss. ; )

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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/etc/master.passwd: No such file or directory   -sh-2.05b# Micky <NONONObobbyburns1111@gmail.com> - 2016-04-09 16:01 -0400
  Re: /etc/master.passwd: No such file or directory   -sh-2.05b# Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2016-04-09 21:22 +0000
  Re: /etc/master.passwd: No such file or directory   -sh-2.05b# Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2016-04-10 04:48 +0000

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