HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cpcahil@vti.com (Conor P. Cahill)
Subject: Re: SEGV inside malloc() - This shouldn't happen!
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 12:40:48 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.004746.7742@sj.ate.slb.com>, poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) writes:
> 
> Yes, but this sounds like you are merely replacing the Sun library with your
> own to do heap checking. Purify does much more than that, actually tracks
> pointer usage for validity whenever you refernce memory. A simple library
> cannot do this.

What you say is true.  However, the thing that you need to look at is the
difference that this will make in a real world environment.  There are two
places where this will make a difference:

1. Purify will report an error for a read access directly by your program,
while SENTINEL can only trap this if you attempt the read access through
one of the intercepted libc functions.  (Of course, we intercept all of 
the library functions that are typically used to access memory such as the
mem*, b*, and str* functions).

2. Purify will report an error for a write access directly by your program
at the time it occurs.  SENTINEL will report it at the time it occurs if
the write attempt was made via one of the intercepted library calls or 
at the next library call that accesses that data area.

These are Purify's two main advantages (especially when you consider that
we will have an optional garbage collection leak report (the same kind of
leak report that Purify uses) in our 1.4 release which will be shipped on
March 1).

To get these advantages, you have to pay 6 or 7 times the price, live
with much more restrictive licensing, and only have the tool available
on Sun OS 4.1.x on a SPARC 2.  SENTINEL is available right now on 
Sun OS 4.1.x, Solaris 2.x, HP-UX, DYNIX/ptx, DG-UX, ULTRIX, AIX,
SCO UNIX,  SVR3.2, and SVR4.x.


-- 
*** SENTINEL(tm) The ultimate Debugging Environment - email for more info ***

Conor P. Cahill              (703)430-9247            cpcahil@virtech.vti.com
Virtual Technologies, Inc.  46030 Manekin Plaza          Dulles, VA 20166
From: jkenyon@css.itd.umich.edu (Jim Kenyon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Changing the login banner
Date: 27 Jan 1993 17:03:37 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan ITD Consulting and Support Services
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: spumco.css.itd.umich.edu
Summary: I want to change the message printed b/f the login prompt
Keywords: banner, login, message

I need to change the message printed before the login prompt (what is
usually "SunOS UNIX (hostname)") to (or add) a short, one line message.
Can this be done on a Sun?  IRIX has /etc/issue to handle this chore; how
does Sun handle this?  (BTW, SunOS 4.1.3)
Thanks,
-jk
-- 
Jim Kenyon -- jkenyon@engin.umich.edu 
Systems Research Programmer II, CAEN/CIESIN Project
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: weinri@athena.cs.uga.edu (Kevin Weinrich)
Subject: / and /usr on separate disks in 4.1.3?
Summary: Will I go blind if I don't keep them on the same disk?
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 15:57:43 GMT

I'm about to move up from OS 4.1 to 4.1.3 on my SPARC 1+'s.
For space reasons, it would be nice to have the root (/)
partition on one disk and /usr on another.  Is this legal?
Are there reasons why I should not do it?  I tried to check
TFM, but the install manual for 4.1.3 doesn't seem to say one
way or the other.  Our old 4.1.1 manual says that they *should*
be on the same disk so that the system will boot even if the
second drive fails.  If I'm willing to accept that risk, does
anyone know of an over-riding reason not to go ahead and do this?

Thanks,
Kevin Weinrich
(kbw@helios.ath.epa.gov) 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: elling@eng.auburn.edu (Richard Elling)
Subject: Re: Bringing a Sun to it's knees
Reply-To: elling@eng.auburn.edu
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:56:55 GMT

In article 28758@ra.msstate.edu, fwp@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) writes:
>
>If you look in /sys/conf.common/param.c you will see that MAXUPRC (the
>number of processes per user) is set to 5 less than the total number of
>processes available.

Under SunOS 4.x you would then, conceivably, have different kernels
for your multiuser systems than your desktops.  This isn't very easy
to manage at a large site.

Fortunately, in SunOS 5.x (Solaris 2.x) you can just set the "maxuprc"
variable in the /etc/system file and reboot.  No kernel compiling
needed.  This approach is likely to be managable for large sites.

---
 Richard Elling                          Manager of Network Support
 Auburn University                       Engineering Administration
 richard.elling@eng.auburn.edu   KB4HB [44.100.0.72]  (205)844-2280
 Type-5 keyboard survival: xmodmap -e "keysym BackSpace = Delete"
From: grk@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Glenn R. Kronschnabl)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: DNS & Solaris 2.1
Date: 27 Jan 1993 00:20:50 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Distribution: usa
Reply-To: grk@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Glenn R. Kronschnabl)
NNTP-Posting-Host: minnie.cc.utexas.edu

Hi

I am trying to get only DNS running on a SPARC 2 running Solaris 2.1.  From
the documentation "SunOs 5.1 Administering NIS+ and DNS", I quote:

...copy /usr/lib/libsockdns.so into /usr/lib/libsocket.so ...

Where the heck is libsockdns.so?  I can't find it anywhere.  Its
not in /usr/lib!

Thanks for any pointers.

Regards,
Glenn
----
Glenn R. Kronschnabl
UT-Austin (but an Aggie at heart!)
I didn't do it, you didn't see me do it, you can't prove anything!

Internet: grk@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.admin:10586 comp.sys.sun.apps:3030
From: etxmesa@eos.ericsson.se (Michael Salmon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.apps
Subject: Re: Keycode Assignments for use by xmodmap
Date: 21 Jan 93 12:29:35 GMT
Reply-To: etxmesa@eos.ericsson.se (Michael Salmon)
Organization: Ericsson Telecom AB

In article <C17Dr6.2G4@hermes.hrz.uni-bielefeld.de>, marvo@asl.uni-bielefeld.de (Markus Vogt) writes:
|> Hello,
|> 
|> I have problems in setting up the Sun Type5 keyboard attached to a
|> SPARCstation 10 correctly.
|> 
|> On the console screen (right after the login process) I can use 
|> the grey cursor keys, but when I start XWindows, XWindows seems 
|> to change the keycode assignments.  These keycodes differ from the 
|> codes I found in the 'Sun Type5 Keyboard Product Notes', which 
|> came along with the SPARCstation 10 package.
|> 
|> I won't be able to use the grey cursor keys unless I modify the keymap 
|> using 'xmodmap'.  The file I feed to xmodmap contains the following lines:
|> 
|>   keycode 27 = Up
|>   keycode 31 = Left
|>   keycode 34 = Down
|>   keycode 35 = Right
|> 
|> 
|> Is there a way to have a global keycode assignment instead of having 
|> each user include the xmodmap command with his '.xinitrc' file?
|> Or could I prevent XWindows from changing keycode assignments?
|> 
|> I would appreciate any help,
|> 
|> Markus

There is a patch to support Type 5 keyboards, it is in
sunkbd.921216.tar.Z and available from germany.eu.net amongst other
sites. It also gives you a compose key.

-- 

Michael Salmon

#include	<standard.disclaimer>
#include	<witty.saying>
#include	<fancy.pseudo.graphics>

Ericsson Telecom AB
Stockholm
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.admin:10728 comp.sys.sun.hardware:7088
From: kakazu@racerx.cit.cornell.edu (Gary Kakazu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: parity errors for sparcstation 1
Date: 25 Jan 1993 19:57:15 GMT
Organization: Cornell Network Management Center
Distribution: world
Reply-To: kakazu@cornell.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: racerx.cit.cornell.edu

One of our sparc 1's (sunos 4.1.1) has recently been spewing out messages like:

Jan 24 03:01:32 trixy vmunix: Parity error reported at 0x7980, actual address is 0x7984.
Jan 24 03:01:32 trixy vmunix: Parity Error, ctx = 0x6, virt addr = 0x7984
Jan 24 03:01:32 trixy vmunix: pme = c3001330, phys addr = 1330984
Jan 24 03:01:32 trixy vmunix: Parity Error Register 98<ERROR,CHECK,ERR00>
Jan 24 03:01:32 trixy vmunix:  bad module/chip at:  U589
Jan 24 03:01:32 trixy vmunix: pid 2146 killed: parity error
Jan 24 03:01:32 trixy vmunix: parity error at 7980 with pattern aaaaaaaa.

Is this enough info to tell me which SIMM (or SIMM's) that need to be replaced.
The one line that the messages have in common is: "bad module/chip at:  U589". I
assume this gives me the needed information on which SIMM is bad, but I don't
know how to  "U589" to an actual SIMM on the board.

Gary
-- 

Cub fan, Homebrew man

Gary Kakazu				kakazu@cornell.edu
Network Specialist			(607) 255-1679 
Network Support Services
Cornell Information Technologies
Cornell University
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Symlink on full fs crashes SunOS 4.1.1.
From: oleg@gd.cs.csufresno.edu (Oleg Kibirev)
Date: 22 Jan 93 22:37:18 PST
Distribution: world
Organization: Computer Science Departement of California State University in Fresno

Once in a while a  parition on  HD of our Sun 3/60 server running SunOS  4.1.1
fills up. I noticed that  if at this  point someone tries to make  a  symbolic
link within this partition, they get "I/O error" instead  of expected "no free
space left on device" and the server totally messes up. Any process that tries
to access this  fs in future  would lock up and ignore any signal (and will be
marked as D  in output of ps -u). This is especially unfortunate on NFS server
since after clients do the same thing 8 times, all NFS daemons block.

Freeing up a little bit of space on the  parition doesn't help. If  the system
is rebooted, the problem will repeat  when directory with symlink is accessed.
unlink()ing symbolic link without trying to  stat() it seams  to be a solution
(one still needs to reboot after this).

I  suspect  SunOS  has  problems  checking  for  free  space  before  starting
symlink(). If  it is the case, it's too  bad that it  doesn't  forget to check
MINFREE when actually doing  it. (Server's filesystems have usual 10% reserved
for performance).

Is there any NFS patch we are missing? Does it work? ;)

Thanks!
Oleg

P.S: Just looked at the console of a client mounting /home from the server
mentioned above and noticed that it's very busy repeating the same message:

...
NFS getattr failed for server yosemite: RPC: Unable to receive
NFS getattr failed for server yosemite: RPC: Unable to receive
NFS getattr failed for server yosemite: RPC: Unable to receive
...

I have never seen this message before. Probably another reboot is a fix, but
does anyone have an idea why is this happening?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.apps,comp.sys.sun.misc
From: scott@sdc.com (Scott Dunbar)
Subject: Re: SEGV inside malloc() - This shouldn't happen!
Originator: scott@minnie
Organization: sdc
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 14:50:11 GMT



In article <MANN.93Jan21131125@emma.la.asu.edu>, mann@emma.la.asu.edu (Mark Mann) writes:
> In article <mike.727636808@sdd.comsat.com> mike@sdd.comsat.com (Mike Stennett) writes:
> >  I am currently porting a program to a SparcStation 2 running SUN/OS 4.1.2.
> >  The program is written in C, Pascal, and Fortran.  I am using all SUN 
> >  compilers.  My problem is I am getting segmentation faults within malloc.
> >  Now I have been writing C programs for 4 years and know that malloc should
> >  never cause a segmentation faults.
> >  [...]
> 
> I have found that malloc() will fail with a segmentation fault when you
> trash its tables.  This usually happens when you write beyond the end
> of an array.  You haven't written out far enough to cause a segmentation
> violation yourself, but just far enough to make garbage out of malloc()'s
> tables. So... next time you call malloc() and it tries to access the
> garbage you created... SEGV or somesuch.

	I agree fully.  If you trash the heap, anything is possible with malloc()
and free().  I would recommend the Purify product or something like it to track
down these types of problems.  With this it should take you very little time to
find anywhere that you are writing over the end or before the beginning of a block
of allocated memory.  Purify helped me find many errors on a system that was
ported from MS-DOS.  The MS-DOS boxes would sometimes go into never-never land
but basically were ok.  The Suns SIGSEGV'd or SIGBUS'd all over the place.

	Good luck.
-- 
scott dunbar                             Systems Development Corporation
scott@sdc.UUCP                           Chicago, IL
..uunet!tellab5!sdc!scott		 312 739 1111
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: fredrick@acd.ucar.edu (Timothy Fredrick)
Subject: (Solaris 2.0) Where is libtt.so.1?
Organization: Ntl Center for Atmospheric Research - Atmospheric Chemistry Div
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 15:34:56 GMT

I recently upgraded a Sparcstation-1 to Solaris 2.0 (I know that 2.1 is
on it's way :-) ) and everything worked fine except that some openwin/bin
applications refuse to come up, complaining (for example):

      ld.so.1: /usr/openwin/bin/filemgr: Can't find file libtt.so.1

Can someone direct me to which module I forgot to load that might contain
this library or describe what the library is supposed to do?

Thanks in advance.

--Tim Fredrick (fredrick@acd.ucar.edu)
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.admin:10797 comp.sys.sun.hardware:7135
From: d8ahlcr@dtek.chalmers.se (Christopher Ahlberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Generating sound
Date: 26 Jan 93 19:08:39 GMT
Organization: Chalmers University Of Technology

I'm looking for information on how to generate sound on my ELC using
for exemple c - or whatever other language - and I don't mean complex
telephone quality sound recordings that I can do with soundtool, just
plain sound. Something like a 'beep x y' taking a duration and
frequence as an argument would be great.

It should be simple but I can't find out how to do it! Any help is
appreciated - please answer by email!

	/Christopher
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.hp
From: Steinar.Haug@delab.sintef.no (Steinar Haug)
Subject: Re: Bringing a Sun to it's knees
Organization: SINTEF DELAB, Trondheim, Norway.
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 11:34:27 GMT

fwp@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) writes:
> In article <T6AXBYAV@cc.swarthmore.edu> eoliver@ralph.cs.haverford.edu (Erik Oliver) says:
> : During our Operating Systems class, we were being asked to see for
> : ourselves that "modern" operating systems place limits on the number of
> : processes an individual user can run thus preventing over load.
> 
> Interesting.  Who came up with that theory?  It isn't true and in many
> cases it isn't desirable.

Um, it's true for *some* operating systems. The standard configuration files
for HP-UX 8.0 (400 series) and 8.07 (700 series) will limit the number of
processes per user to 50. We have found this to be too small for many of our
users, especially with heavy use of many windows on the screen.

In my opinion, having a limit of 50 processes per use is *not* a sensible
default when systems arrive from HP preconfigured with X11R4, VUE etc. What
we have done on all our HPs is basically the same as is done by default on
our Suns: Set MAXUPRC to the total number of processes in the system minus a
reasonable safety margin for the system itself. We've never had any problem
with this.

Steinar Haug, system/networks administrator
SINTEF DELAB, University of Trondheim, NORWAY
Email: Steinar.Haug@delab.sintef.no, 
	sthaug@idt.unit.no, steinar@tosca.er.sintef.no
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: root@gbrmpa.gov.au (Operator)
Subject: SunOS PC Backup program wanted!
Organization: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 03:15:03 GMT

Hi,
	I am looking for a PD program which will allow users to backup
files on a Sparc (with floppy drive) using MS-DOS 'backup' convention.
I've seen one for the Amiga(sp?) computer, but not for anything else.

thanks,
	Matt Crowd. root@gbrmpa.gov.au
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: fwp@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters)
Subject: Re: Are Sun's libraries unbundled also?
Organization: Computing Center, Mississippi State University
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 03:36:53 GMT

In article <1993Jan21.164604.16413@dtint.uucp> tom@dtint.uucp (Thomas R. Kimpton) says:
:                                                     My question
: is: Even though the compiler has been unbundled, are the libraries
: still included in the system?  Or do they only come with the
: compiler. This way I could use gcc, but use Sun's libraries.

Yes, they are include.  As are the include files and other peripheral
stuff needed to compile programs.  Basically, all that is missing is
the compiler itself (and the debugger).
--
Frank Peters  -  UNIX Systems Programmer  -  Mississippi State University
Internet: fwp@CC.MsState.Edu  -  Phone: (601)325-7030  -  FAX: (601)325-8921
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.unix.admin
From: kwan@netcom.com (Kwan-Seng Low)
Subject: latest RCS? where to find?
Followup-To: poster
Keywords: RCS, rcs, where
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 01:40:02 GMT

Just a short question....
Where I can find the latest RCS?
Thanks

Reply to kwan@osc.versant.com

Kwan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: karrer@bernina.ethz.ch (Andreas Karrer)
Subject: Re: Bringing a Sun to it's knees
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:14:04 GMT

fwp@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) writes:
>   [ standard infinite loop fork program deleted ]
>: We are thinking of ways to prevent this from happening again, any
>: suggestions?

>If you look in /sys/conf.common/param.c you will see that MAXUPRC (the
>number of processes per user) is set to 5 less than the total number of
>processes available.  Keeping in mind that the overwhelming number of
>Suns are single user-at-a-time desktop workstations this makes sense.

Well, a typical sun runs about 15 processes before any user logs in. thus

	#define MAXUPRC (NPROC - 5)

will not do you any good: consider a user who -- perhaps inadvertently --
creates MAXUPRC zombies: the sysadmin cannot log in anymore and kill
the parent process.


+-----------
  Andi Karrer, Communication Systems, ETH Zuerich, Switzerland
  karrer@bernina.ethz.ch    - Objects in mirror are closer than they appear
From: kenh@leps5.phys.psu.edu (Ken Hornstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: Bringing a Sun to it's knees
Date: 27 Jan 1993 21:18:03 GMT
Organization: Penn State, Laboratory for Elementary Particle Science

In article <GUENTHER.93Jan26183131@amcl5.stolaf.edu> guenther@stolaf.edu (Philip A Guenther) writes:
>   Well, a typical sun runs about 15 processes before any user logs in. thus
>
>	   #define MAXUPRC (NPROC - 5)
>
>   will not do you any good: consider a user who -- perhaps inadvertently --
>   creates MAXUPRC zombies: the sysadmin cannot log in anymore and kill
>   the parent process.
>
>Aha!  Wrong!  The sysadmin *can* still login.  As getty exec's login
>exec's the shell, you can login.  The problem comes when you go to do
>a ps.  What the sysadmin could do is 'exec su -f <person at fault>',
>then do 'kill -STOP -1'  (This assumes kill is a shell builtin as in
>csh.  In bourne shell, do 'exec kill -STOP -1').  This will stop all
>of the user's processes (except the shell), and a 'kill -TERM -1' (The
>-TERM lets the -1 be passed to the kill(2) call) will kill them.
>Unless the person had them catch SIGTERM, in which case it is quite
>clear that this wasn't an accident... (okay, maybe not, but still,
>they better have a *gooood* explanation!)

Of course, this only works from the console or on a serial line, since
inetd forks a new telnetd or rlogind for each incoming connection.

Incidently, if you _really_ want to bring a Sun to it's knees, the
following program works much better:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>

main() {
	int fd;

	if ((fd = open("/dev/audio",O_RDWR)) == -1) {
		perror("open");
		exit(1);
	}

	ftruncate(fd,0);

	exit(0);

}

(Forgive any typos, this is from memory.  But you get the general idea).

--Ken
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: srg@galileo.polito.it (S.Moretto(uff=710350))
Subject: Quantum Prodrive 425S and Sun SS2
Organization: Politecnico di Torino - Italy
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 21:55:52 GMT

Hi,
I have a Quantum Prodrive 425S (SCSI) disk 425 MBytes and I want to install
on a SS2 but I find in the product manual only few characteristic for
this drive:
	
	ctrl = SCSI
	ncyl = ?
	acyl = ?
	pcyl = 1520
	nhead = 9
	nsect = ??
	rpm = 3600
	bpt = ??

I dont find the number of sector because the manual tell there is a VARIABLE
number of sector per track; also I dont find btp.

Someone can help me?

Thanks,							/srg
-- 
Sergio Moretto				News Administrator
via Ventimiglia 16/9			Internet: srg@galileo.polito.it
10126 Torino - ITALY			Phone: +39-11-7791638
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: paula@atc.boeing.com (Paul Allen,calamity)
Subject: Re: BSD 4.4 automounter and Solaris 2.x
Reply-To: paula@atc.boeing.com
Organization: Boeing Computer Services
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 02:35:48 GMT

In article 89F@nit.pactel.com, mike@nit.pactel.com (Mike Cantu) writes:
>Has anyone tried it yet?

I applied the diffs that were posted to the amd-workers mailing list a
week or so ago.  Amd compiled cleanly, but dies silently with a bus error
if I try to touch anything in my /usr/local map.  The /users and /proj
maps behave nicely, but anything in /usr/local causes amd to silently die,
leaving the system in such an inconsistent state that it must be rebooted.

I'm using the Cygnus port of gcc under Solaris 2.1.  I guess something in
one of my maps is tickling a bug in the 2.x port.  When I have a chance to
dig into it a little more completely, I'll post something to amd-workers.

Paul Allen


Paul L. Allen -- Paul.Allen@atc.boeing.com or ...!uw-beaver!bcsaic!Paul.Allen
Boeing Computer Services, Research & Technology, Computing Environment  (whew!)
"Whether you believe that you can or that you cannot, you're right!" (unknown)
From: kevinc@tekig6.PEN.TEK.COM (Kevin E Cosgrove)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: What's the best remedy for power failure related disk problems?
Summary: Repeated power failures caused disk problems
Date: 21 Jan 93 18:33:43 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

Configuration:  Sun-3/50M, SunOS 4.1.1_U1, Wren V, Wangtek QIC-24

Original Symptoms:

	Yesterday my home system experienced around 20 power failures
	with durations of 0.1 sec to 10 sec in the space of about 1/2
	hour.  During one of the longer power failures I got to the
	power switch and shut the machine off to wait for better line
	conditions.  When next rebooted I missed the first fsck
	messages since they scrolled off screen, but I know there were
	errors since it rebooted again.  When I got a login prompt I
	couldn't login.  csh, mv, rm, and sh were all missing.

1st Corrective Action:

	I installed miniroot and analyzed the disk with format.  No
	problems were found in read only mode.  Then I restored / and
	/usr from backups.  After the restore with a few sync's I
	fsck'd the new systems.  / was OK, but /usr/had two UNREF'd
	files and a wrong free block count.  Subsequent fsck's were OK.
	I rebooted the system and got the same fsck error messages on
	/usr that I'd just got a few minutes before.  It looks like
	fsck's repair wasn't so good.  Eventually the machine came up
	with a clean fsck.

Next Symptoms:
	
	I logged in and did some other work.  After some time I noticed
	that files were disappearing from /usr/bin again.  I was running
	/usr/bin/csh, but I couldn't run another csh since it had
	disappeared.

Last Corrective Action:

	I decided to reformat, analyze and restore again.  The machine
	is at home now doing it's format -- 14 minutes estimated HA!


QUESTION:

	What are peoples experiences with this type of failure?  Am I
	looking at a possible physical/electrical problem with my disk?
	Do folks think that reformatting stands a chance of really
	fixing the problem?


	Thanks for any advice.  I'll post a summary if there is interest.


--
--
Kevin.E.Cosgrove@Tek.COM
Unless otherwise noted, the statements herein reflect my personal
opinions and not those of any organization with which I may be affiliated.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin