SUMMARY: t64 5.0 patchkit 2 precheck error message

From: Paul A Sand <pas_at_unh.edu>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 09:06:54 -0400

Hi --

Original problem: I wondered about the error messages I was seeing
during the precheck for Tru64 v5.0 patchkit 2:

    du: .a: No such file or directory
    expr: syntax error
    expr: syntax error

Tom Blinn and Tom Reu (both from Compaq) responded, and many thanks
to them, as always.

Tom Reu:

> It looks like these messages are coming from code that is checking
> for space. If you have an opportunity, please try running the pre-check
> in single-user mode. If the error occurs again, please send me the output
> of "ps -aef -o command" on your system.
>
> In any event, the messages will not affect your patch installation.

Tom Blinn encouraged me to `go for it' and dig into the dupatch shell
script to find out where the error was occurring.

Emboldened by the Toms, I went ahead and tried to figure out what
dupatch was doing. The problem occurs in lines 1112-1139 when dupatch
(for whatever undoubtedly good reason) looks at the sizes of executable
files corresponding to currently-running processes. For most processes
(e.g. `inetd') it goes like:

    LINE is "inetd" ==>
    `type inetd` says "inetd is /usr/sbin/inetd" ==>
    OUTPUT is /usr/sbin/inetd ==>
    "./usr/sbin/inetd" gets put in check-filesize list ==>
    which works fine

BUT if there's a `login' process on the system:

    LINE is "login" ==>
    `type login` says "login is a shell builtin" ==>
    OUTPUT is "a"
    ".a" gets put in the check-filesize list ==>
    which causes the error message

It's a dupatch bug, but doesn't seem to be threatenting the
safety of the patch install. Wouldn't show up in single-user mode
at all, I assume.

-- 
-- Paul A. Sand                 | Give me ambiguity or give me
-- University of New Hampshire  | something else.
-- pas_at_unh.edu                  |     (Anonymous)
-- http://pubpages.unh.edu/~pas | 
Received on Fri Apr 14 2000 - 13:07:43 NZST

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