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Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 11:32:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ed Alley <alley1@llnl.gov>
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cc: edalley@covad.net
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Subject: File permissions suddenly change for /dev/null.
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I'm running FreeBSD-4.8. Sometimes the file permissions for /dev/null get
mysteriously changed by some unknown process to:

	crw------- 1 root wheel 2, 2 Sep 2 11:20 /dev/null

This has a devastating effect on user processes that want to open
/dev/null. Whenever my system starts acting funny, the first place
I look is at the permissions for /dev/null. When I find them changed
I go under root and execute:

	chmod 666 /dev/null

to get things back to normal.

Has anybody seen this before? Have I got a hidden umask set up
wrong somewhere, or is one of my daemons the culprit? Or could
it be happening during the time that I run as root doing
system maintenance?

				Ed Alley