Messages in this thread |  | | From | "Daniel Linder" <> | Subject | Re: Corrupt program files | Date | Thu, 19 Sep 1996 13:26:40 -0500 |
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On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, William M. Perkins wrote: > I just had something unusual happen. Although I do not really know > when it happened. The gzip binary in /bin, and its hard linked > counterparts /bin/gunzip and /bin/zcat, are corrupt! This is some- > thing I do not expect to happen and it has never happened before as > far as I know. I am running the 2.0.20 kernel on a 486/DX2 and no
From: Philip Blundell <pjb27@cam.ac.uk> > Bizarrely, precisely the same thing happened to me last week. I had just > upgraded to 2.0.20 (from 2.0.4) and was doing a fresh install on one > machine off CD-ROM. When it came to reboot with the newly-installed > system, gzip was corrupt in some way (though the file length was right). > I never worked out how it happened. I reinstalled again and the problem > didn't recur, though it was a bit worrying. > > It seems a bit improbable that it's a kernel thing though. At the time I > put it down to cosmic rays or something, because I didn't have time to > chase it properly.
I have not had much time to work with the 2.0.20 kernel, but since it was new I have been at the 2.0.10 kernel and had a "similar" problem. I say "similar" since it is a "weird" corruption like the above two, but it affected the system in a different way... I believe the cause of the problem might be from a program I trying to get running ( an OpenLook Windows Manager that came from a year old Slackware CD). I was logged in as root (a big no-no) and changed roots' default window manager in .xsession and started up XWindows. Unfortunately, with my X server (Accelerated X from X Inside Inc. running on Caldera Ver 1.0) when I go back to Text mode the screen is in power-saving mode and I can't get the text back. Because of this, I could not see why X was dying. When I rebooted and tried to login as root, I would login but then the Virtual Console would hang. I switched to another VC and could login as my dlinder user with no problem, but doing a "su" to root hung also. I rebooted into single user mode and made a suid-root shell, booted normally and the suid-root shell worked fine. I got to looking around and found that nearly EVERY file on the system had the group-id set to the bogus "httpd" user group (GID 501). I did a find/chgrp and fixed things up to where they seemed normal and attempted the XWindows again. Again, it died and I had to go through the same things. I upgraded to 2.0.20 but have not tried this same test on that kernel or other user IDs... Does anyone remember if there is a "bad" program floating around that might do this, or a reason that an otherwise well behaved program could go bad? If I turn up more problems or a solution I will write more later.
Dan
--- Daniel Linder -- WebCentric Communications (402) 346-9466 http://www.webcentric.net
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