FW: SUMMARY: Runaway syslogd, diskusg and getbyname

From: Amanda Dahl/mail+schedule (Amanda.Dahl@exchangebrk.BARRA.com)
Date: Fri Aug 28 1998 - 14:15:58 CDT


-----Original Message-----
From: Amanda Dahl/mail+schedule
Sent: Friday, August 28, 1998 12:03 PM
To: sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu
Subject: SUMMARY: Runaway syslogd, diskusg and getbyname

It turns out that when I disabled an account yesterday, I accidentally
removed the uid field of the passwd file for it when I was removing other
parts of the entry. This caused the getpwent (function of authd?) to gack,
sending errors to authlog. There were so many errors that it overloaded
syslogd, somehow also affecting diskusg and getbyname, on any SunOS machine
that the passwd file was pushed to via yp, including the LOGHOST (who's /var
directory kept maxxing out--my first clue to this whole problem).

Thank you to Caspar Dik who helped me recognize what the getpwent message
meant (i.e. missing ":" somewhere in the passwd file).

Hello folks:
My original post was..

I've got two sun4m machines running SunOS 4.1.3_U1, and both are
experiencing the same problem. All free cpu cycles are being dedicated to
syslogd, diskusg and getbyname. I've tried killing and restarting syslogd,
the problem returned the next day. Syslog.conf on either machine hasn't been
touched in years. Does anyone recognize this problem?

As suggested by Mark Hargrave, Peter Polasek and Tim Pointing, I have run
syslogd -d (debugging) and discovered this error:
 
syslog: getpwent: premature end of line after name: "^M@^Q ^N9/^P^O).
^P^Y^Q^P^Q^I^P"

This is being reported to the authlog on my LOGHOST. Turns out that this is
a problem on every single SunOS machine here (no Solaris machine is
effected).
Since getpwent seems to be referencing the passwd file, I figure that I am
looking for a "premature end of line after name" in the yp passwd file. Has
anyone has experience with this? Is it a misplaced newline character?

Thanks,
Amanda D.

---------------------------------
Amanda K. Dahl
Information Services
BARRA, INC.
2100 Milvia Avenue
Berkeley.CA 94704
adahl@barra.com
---------------------------------
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that
would also stop you from doing clever things." -- Doug Gwyn

                                                     



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