Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 03:50:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net> To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: bin/39940: /usr/sbin/periodic sends thousands of emails Message-ID: <200206281050.g5SAo40M000627@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR bin/39940; it has been noted by GNATS.
From: Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net>
To: Guolin Cheng <guolin@alexa.com>
Cc: bug-followup@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: bin/39940: /usr/sbin/periodic sends thousands of emails
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 13:39:54 +0300
On Thu, Jun 27, 2002 at 05:28:21PM -0700, Guolin Cheng wrote:
>
> >Number: 39940
> >Category: bin
> >Synopsis: /usr/sbin/periodic sends thousands of emails
> >Originator: Guolin Cheng
> >Release: FreeBSD 4.6, but same for all 4.* version
> >Organization:
> ALexa Internet. Inc.
> >Environment:
> FreeBSD rontmp.alexa.com 4.6-RELEASE FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE #0: Fri Jun 21 20:37:42 GMT 2002 root@rontmp.alexa.com:/usr/src/sys/compile/ALEXA i386
>
> >Description:
> The problems are:
>
> 1, /usr/sbin/periodic sends tons of email, when running hourly running
> scripts whether or not the latter generate outputs. Then email server
> will be overwhelmed if we have hundreds or thousands FreeBSD boxes.
This can be worked around easily: make your scripts return an
appropriate exit code to periodic(8) as described in its manual page;
notably, use an exit code of 0 for scripts that produce no output, and
set the hourly_show_success variable to 'no' in /etc/periodic.conf.
Actually, this is the way it is *designed* to work :)
> 2, periodic can not tell normal shell scripts from backup files ended
> with '~' and ',' , which are normally created by CVS/RVS/Perforce. it
> tries to run all executable files under base directory specified.
Uhm.. so.. don't leave any? :) In the case of source-controlled script
directories, I usually keep my working copies somewhere else, and use
the 'real' scripts dir only as a checked-out copy; since it is never
modified, it should never create any conflicts, so no temporary/backup
files should ever be created.
> 3, the coufiguration file */periodic.conf, which contain variable
> definition entries including <basedir>_{show|output|...}, will confuse
> Bourne Shell interpreter when the basedir contains character '.',
> which is normal for directory name but not appropriate for shell
> variable name substitution.
One might argue that this may be solved by the "Don't do that"
approach.. An underscore character would serve just as well as a word
separator in the directory name.
G'luck,
Peter
--
Peter Pentchev roam@ringlet.net roam@FreeBSD.org
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