Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 19:27:10 -0700 From: "Crist J . Clark" <cjclark@reflexnet.net> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Self-DOS Message-ID: <20001010192710.E25121@149.211.6.64.reflexcom.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Here is a really fun way to DOS yourself. I wanted to run a process at reduced priority in the background, so I did, # nice -20 program args & At which point everything on the box just seemed to die. I got no prompt back. I could do the username an password on vty's, but again, no shell prompt would appear. A network login would establish the TCP connection and just hang. I could ping, hellava lotta good that does me. I eventually realized what I had done. I was using /usr/bin/nice syntax, but I had been in csh. In csh with its builtin nice, the above is interpreted as run program at a nice of '-20,' that is at a _rasied_ priority. I had effectively told the system to give the program every single damn clock cycle. The thing is, I ended up *cringe* hitting the reset button. I could not find a way to get in there to kill the program. I crossed my fingers (then uncrossed them) and did the three-finger M$ salute, but that did not even do it (and it's not disabled). The box came up fine, just a few extra seconds to do the fsck, but can anyone out there tell me how I could have recovered from this without the drastic measures I ended up taking? Thanks. Oh, and don't laugh too hard. I can't be the first to have done this. -- Crist J. Clark cjclark@alum.mit.edu To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20001010192710.E25121>