Re: Any Advice On Strange Error?

From: Bill Vermillion (bv@wjv.comREMOVE)
Date: 04/09/03

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    From: bv@wjv.comREMOVE (Bill Vermillion)
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 16:25:19 GMT

    In article <3E94182F.EB55B3A@tkg.ca>, Mike Brown <mike@tkg.ca> wrote:
    >Elliot J wrote:
    >>
    >> Hi Group,
    >>
    >> Our software support helpdesk is currently looking into a strange problem
    >> we're encountering on SCO UNIX v5.0.4 Enterprise OpenServer, running
    >> PROGRESS v8.2C.
    >>
    >> As of yesterday, when users ran our custom PROGRESS database query routines,
    >> they would randomly fail to run and rename themselves from (for example)
    >>
    >> pdb.t
    >> pdb.p
    >> pdb.y
    >>
    >> to:
    >>
    >> `db.t
    >> `db.p
    >> `db.y
    >>
    >> As far as I know (I was away ill yesterday), no errors were being reported
    >> by Varnet, the PROGRESS software which invokes our custom programs. Varnet
    >> is a sales/accounts application suite based on PROGRESS.
    >>
    >> This morning, PROGRESS 'appeared' to have died completely, not letting
    >> anyone into our database at all. But not giving an error, just dropping us
    >> back to the dollar prompt when we attempt to start up the database.
    >>
    >> If I 'ls' our main work directory, '/usr/castle' then it lists a lot of
    >> files with beginning characters replaced by ` (apostraphe?). Others to note
    >> are:
    >>
    >> 'rocore
    >> 'rotrace.26956
    >>
    >> The helpdesk has found that if we log into UNIX as different users - we
    >> generally all log in under one user name (namely 'castle'), then we can
    >> start up the PROGRESS database, seemingly okay.
    >>
    >> But I am still unhappy that it's simply a 'corrupt' user profilem, which is
    >> what the helpdesk is labelling it as at the moment.
    >>
    >> Has anyone seen this renaming of files before?
    >>
    >> Any comments or suggestions, highly appreciated!
    >>
    >> Regards,
    >>
    >> --
    >>
    >> Elliot Johnson
    >> IT Administrator
    >> www.johnsmallmanltd.co.uk
    >>
    >> "toby.Harman" <toby.Harman.ll9cm@progresstalk.com> wrote in message
    >> news:toby.Harman.ll9cm@progresstalk.com...
    >> >
    >> > Interesting that it appears to be "p" that is replaced with apostrophe!
    >> >
    >> > Terminal emulation? Has anything changed? You could try the brute force
    >> > method and create a file with everything modified in the last 2 days
    >> > and see if there are any suspicious entries.
    >> >
    >> > "find / -mtime -2 -print" should get it.
    >> >
    >> > Happy hunting
    >>
    >> Hi Toby,

    >> Thanks for the response,

    >> I output the results to a file and have posted here
    >> http://www.johnsmallmanltd.co.uk/filelist.htm. If you, or
    >> anyone else, would be so kind, any chance you could have a
    >> quick glance? I'm not too familiar with UNIX, so am not sure
    >> if anything looks suspicious or not.

    >> I changed the date in your suggestion to go back 5 days
    >> instead of 2, as I have a feeling this may go back to last
    >> Friday.

    >> The mystery has become more bizarre today, as, overnight, some
    >> files have had 's' in their title replaced with a 'p'!

    >> Strangely, these files have not been date stamped to reflect
    >> the time of this name change. For example, one file renamed
    >> last night, is still date stamped as Jan 31 2002.

    As Mike notes below that is the proper procedure.

    I have seen instances of character changes like you mention, but
    not quite in the way you mention.

    Those had all been RAM problems with stuck bits. the "s" to "p"
    make more sense in that mode than the "p" to "'" you had mentioned.

    >> I am cross-posting this message to a UNIX group or two, as I
    >> do not feel it's just relating to PROGRESS.

    >> Any more help or suggestions, highly appreciated!

    >A move command does not change the creation time, so it is your likely
    >suspect. Do you have any scripts running that may have access to that
    >directory? Search them for a "mv", something like "grep mv *.sh".

    The 'change' time is not seen by the default ls - which normally
    shows modifcation time. The 'c' option could show more info.

    And 'ctime' is change time - the time the basic information in the
    inode was changed - eg a chmod may have been done.

    MAC times - modify, access, change. 'creation' is not an
    attribute.

    Only one OS I know of support 'creation' in addition to the
    modify, access, change. Many inode changes including expanding
    the inode to 256 bytes to be able to make space for 64-bit
    block pointers in addition to the creation time.

    He may have a corrupt binary somewhere too. 

    -- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
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