From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Mar 12 2:11:28 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from dconlon.donhost.co.uk (dconlon.demon.co.uk [193.237.55.196]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 75F9537B718 for ; Mon, 12 Mar 2001 02:11:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from daniel@donhost.co.uk) Received: from doncasterser1 [127.0.0.1] by dconlon.donhost.co.uk [193.237.55.196] with SMTP (MDaemon.v3.5.2.R) for ; Mon, 12 Mar 2001 10:15:44 +0000 From: "Daniel Conlon [Donhost]" To: Subject: pw corrupts files Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 10:15:44 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 X-MDRemoteIP: 127.0.0.1 X-Return-Path: daniel@donhost.co.uk X-MDaemon-Deliver-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I have a FreeBSD 3.4 box with about 4000 users. I use the 'pw' program called from scripts to create new accounts and to change passwords. On this system there is nothing other than the 'pw' program which would have cause to change the password files on the system. Users do not have shell access etc. so it is only the scripts and thus 'pw' which deals with the password files. On two separate occasions the password files on the system have become corrupted. On the first occasion, /etc/master.passwd was truncated about half way down and /etc/passwd was left unharmed. On the second occasion both /etc/master.passwd and /etc/passwd were truncated at the same point once again about half way down. I have read of similar problems in the list archives occurring on busy boxes where 'pw' is being invoked regularly but have found no explanation or fix. This is obviously a serious problem as on both occasions the root user has been removed from the system. Any pointers or help you could offer on this would be greatly appreciated. Kind Regards, Daniel Conlon Donhost Ltd. ########################## Tel: +44 (0)800 956 7642 Mob: +44 (0)7939 268 799 Fax: +44 (0)8707 41 51 07 http://www.donhost.co.uk ########################## To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message