How to fix sudo after “chmod -R 777 /var”?

Question

I executed chmod 777 /var and now Ubuntu won't start, can anyone tell me what I did wrong? And if there is a way of going back?

I can't understand: in the title you have used `-R`, in the question body you haven't. Which one is the right one? (I suspect `-R` is what you have typed.) — Andrea Corbellini, Sep 05 '13 at 11:02

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23

2

This is a security issue: inside /var are files that never are accepted when set to executable for "the whole world" (the 3rd 7 in your command).

If you did -not- use -R with that command this should fix it:

sudo chmod 755 /var

For future reference please read this:

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23

Community

answered Sep 05 '13 at 07:30

Rinzwind

I tried "sudo chmod 755 /var" But it didn't work and got this message "sudo: /etc/sudoers.d is world writable" – Rayan Sep 05 '13 at 07:36
@rayan: http://askubuntu.com/questions/304212/how-to-solve-sudo-etc-sudoers-d-is-world-writable – Rinzwind Sep 05 '13 at 07:44

1 Answers1