Ubuntu EC2 instance, changed root home directory and now unable to SSH in

Question

I have an Amazon EC2 instance runnung Ubuntu 11.10. In an attempt to do a quick fix of a problem I changed the home diretory for the ubuntu user in the /etc/passwd to /srv/www. Now I can't ssh in to the box (I'm assuming) because it can't find .ssh/authorized_keys

I have FTP access to the box, and I can get access to the .ssh/authorized_keys file, but the directory /srv/www is owned by root so I can't just uploaded the .ssh folder there.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

A typical approach is to stop your instance (call it A) and create another instance where you mount A's disk and fix the problem (changing /etc/passwd in your case).

Answer 2

Presuming that you have an EBS root volume, the simplest solution is likely:

• Stop (don't terminate) the instance
• Detach the EBS volume
• Launch another instance
• Attach your current EBS volume to the new instance
• SSH into the new instance, mount the EBS volume and make the needed changes
• Detach the EBS volume from new instance and attach it as the root volume of the old instance
• Start the old instance
• If everything is working, terminate the new instance