Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Tue, 14 May 1996 23:14:52 -0400 | From | "Steven N. Hirsch" <> | Subject | Re: Odd root (and suid root) behavior |
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Marek Michalkiewicz wrote: > > Steven N. Hirsch: > > As of (at least) 1.99.2, an initial root login (or su root) after > > system startup hangs for almost a minute on a 486DX4-100 machine. Once > > logged in, though, everything procedes normally! > > Hi, > > I noticed this too, and I think I tracked it down - it seems to hang > in syslog() (root logins are logged). Perhaps the large number of > boot up messages confuses syslogd somehow (and /dev/log is a stream > socket, so I guess writes block if data is not read quickly enough). > It doesnt't seem to depend on verions of kernel/libc/syslogd (happens > on 1.2.13/4.6.27/1.2 as well as 1.3.100/5.2.18/1.3) except that > I think it didn't happen on one very old machine (syslogd <1.2?). > > > This (mis)behavior also applies to the first suid root program run as a > > conventional user after login, if this helps. > > Perhaps that program happens to use syslog() too, like su? >
Aha. I drew the wrong conclusion. Yes, the program was a little script that starts diald (which is suid root). As I recall, something makes an entry into the syslog when it first comes up. This is all consistant with a problem writing to the log file. Must be some bizarre race condition, as it won't occur on my second box using the exact same kernel.
> Any ideas how to fix it?
I'll second that one :-)).
- Steve -- ___________________________________________________________ |Steven N. Hirsch "Anything worth doing is worth | |University of Vermont overdoing.." - Hunter S. Thompson | |Computer Science / EE | ------------------------------------------------------------
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