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Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 12:37:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ed Alley <alley1@llnl.gov>
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> On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 14:32, Ed Alley wrote:
>> 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

> On Tue, 2003-09-02 Adam McLaurin wrote:
> That's very strange indeed. Have you tried using chflags to prevent the
> permissions from being changed? This should do the trick, albeit a dirty
> hack.

Sorry, I didn't mention that I tried setting flags on /dev/null:

	chflags schg /dev/null

What happens is that sendmail complains that it can't open /dev/null.

Hey! I just realized that this may be a clue! Does sendmail fiddle with
/dev/null? What happens if sendmail tries to lock /dev/null after it
opens it? Does schg prevent fcntl from locking /dev/null, if that is
what sendmail uses?

			Ed Alley