nixCraft

I am having fedora Linux machine and today morning I am not able to login into the machine correctly.When I login as any user it says:
[i have no name!localhost]$
and also says "user has no uid 502
user has no uid 502"

Root is also not working.
Any idea???????why is this displaying so?I checked the /etc/passwd file but can see the user with id 502 there?

check your /etc/passwd
"Note that the bash prompt will say I have no name! This is normal because the /etc/passwd file has not been created yet. " shamelessly stolen from the LFS guide. 6.4.*Entering the Chroot Environment
your machine could be compromised or you have gone under spirits and/or ghost and the ghost scared your /etc/passwd or /etc/passwd- or /etc/shadow or /etc/shadow- files.
read the first 6 sub chapters of chapter 6 set the path and also dir and et al right in the bash skel located in /etc/skel edit it. and run the recovery disk be it debian or redhat aka fedora core (ewww) and fix it.
this should help. ghost .... run for your life.....
rm the current user.
joe@desktop# userdel username (DO NOT PASS OTHER SWITCHES)
joe@desktop# useradd username
joe@desktop# id root
uid=0(root) gid=0(root)

groups=0(root),1(bin),2(daemon),3(sys),4(adm),6(di sk),10(wheel),11(floppy)

this is what you must see. and also if some other user has same id as "id root" get a livecd and run chkrootkit and also rkhunter and run a full fledge scan. good luck. 2007 timestamp issue, i guess by now the problem must have got killed with a reinstall, rest of those who will face it for sure? might see how to circumvent this in future.