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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!inferno.mpx.com.au!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.uwa.edu.au!disco.iinet.net.au!news.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!Germany.EU.net!zib-berlin.de!zrz.TU-Berlin.DE!news.dfn.de!Radio-MSU.net!satty.npi.msu.su!news.phys.msu.su!news.rssi.ru!news.ioffe.rssi.ru!fl.ioffe.rssi.ru!hill From: hill@fl.ioffe.rssi.ru (Andrey Y. Khilko) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: corrupt etc/spwd.db Date: 22 May 1996 17:07:17 GMT Organization: A.F.Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute. Russian Academy of Sciences. Lines: 27 Message-ID: <4nvhk5$rgh@ccioffe.ioffe.rssi.ru> References: <4m9j3i$qcq@netnews.upenn.edu> <4mnrb5$151@anorak.coverform.lan> NNTP-Posting-Host: fl.ioffe.rssi.ru X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Eric M. Umansky (eumansky@mail1.sas.upenn.edu) wrote: : For unknown reasons, the spwd.db and passwd files seem to have erased : themselves. We have been able to access the files using single user-mode, but I've met a similar problem with FreeBSD 2.1.0 After about 25 hours after reboot, directory /etc becomes unreachable while the rest of the system looks OK. Sure, none can log into the system. Access attempts lead to typical error messages: Apr 21 18:20:45 rod inetd[4706]: /etc/spwd.db: No such file or directory Apr 21 18:20:45 rod inetd[4706]: imap2/tcp: root: No such user Apr 21 18:21:06 rod inetd[4708]: /etc/spwd.db: No such file or directory Apr 21 18:21:06 rod inetd[4708]: login/tcp: root: No such user It was found that a number of access attempts to /etc may normalize the system behaviour although once we found /etc to be deleted at all. At last, I just run from /etc/rc a script copying /etc/spwd.db to /dev/null. If exit status is zero it waits for some time. If not, it stupidly retries until zero. The script works successfully for about two months. A friend of mine supposed that probably it would be enough only to open /etc for reading. But I didn't check since the problem seem to be solved. In such case it is useful to keep one console terminal with root logged from it. It let me to experiment with the system when the problem occured. To prevent the terminal from an unauthorized access I used to lock it. Andrey Khilko. hill@fl.ioffe.rssi.ru