Well, it had to happen sometime. I ran the install.sh script included in a tarball (which had to run as root) and it screwed my system.
Running:
chmod -R 775 /$VARIABLE
When
$VARIABLE is undefined it does bad things, very bad things. I managed to repair enough of the files to be able to login remotely, and I'm currently going through and reinstalling all the Debian packages on my box, fixing other issues as they arise. It is highly likely this cockup will hang around for years and years to come.
Bug report has been
filed.
I'm going to install Xen on this box and do any testing of applications in a clean room which I can just blow away if things go horribly wrong again.
