Newsgroups: bit.listserv.novell
Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 03:13:51 EDT
Reply-To:     Novell LAN Interest Group <NOVELL@SUVM.BITNET>
From:         "BRETT @ BWARTHEN * Brett Warthen"
              <BRETT@INFINITE.MHS.COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject:      RE: EMERGENCY: No one can login!
X-To:         NOVELL@suvm.acs.syr.EDU

FORWARDED MESSAGE from "David M. Kobbervig" (MAIL @ CSERVE
{INTERNET:DAVE@AE.AGECON.WISC.EDU}) at 7/23/92 9:26p

From: "David M. Kobbervig" <DAVE@AE.AGECON.WISC.EDU>
Subject:      EMERGENCY: No one can login!

Dear Netters:

This afternoon a friend was adding a group in syscon when she choose
to add a trustee directory called "SYS:\".  It prompted "yes or no"
to create a new directory, she answered yes and later discovered
peolpe couldn't login.  This is what happened:

* The f:\login directory was deleted!
* All the files in f:\system were deleted (except directories)!

I copied all files from the diskettes back into the appropriate
places (I think) but noone can login.  Stations that were logged
in are fine (for now), but other stations establish a connection and
then report an invalid drive letter.  Do we need to reinstall the
network?  Thanks for your reply!

Dave
***** NOTES from Brett Warthen (BRETT @ BWARTHEN) at 7/23/92 11:49p
Dave,

Okay...your first step is to restore the files to the SYS:LOGIN directory
and down your server.

When you bring your server backup, it will recognize the SYS:LOGIN
directory again.  The problem is that SYS:LOGIN is something special that
NetWare looks for at server startup time...if the directory gets deleted,
then the NETX shell will be unable to find SYS:LOGIN when workstations
boot up.

So, down the server, and you will be out of the woods.

But...we need to address a more important issue...and EVERYONE on the
list should take note.

I've seen scattered reports about disappearing directories under NetWare
3.11, and people thinking that SYSCON was possibly deleting directories.

As crazy as this sounds, THIS APPARENTLY IS TRUE!

When creating trustee assignments, either 3.62 SYSCON (which shipped with
NetWare 3.11) or 3.66 SYSCON (which was released afterwards) or possibly
both versions, have a possible bug where directories can be deleted.
Apparently it has something to do with SYSCON getting confused between
forward slashes and backslashes or some such.

The day before yesterday, Novell released SYSCON v3.68 to correct this
problem.  It was uploaded to NOVLIB Library 1 on CompuServe (I don't know
how up to date the mirror sites are) under the filename SYS368.ZIP.

I don't want to create a panic...but this is certainly a patch that all
network administrators should be aware of.

Since we're on the subject, there are also a couple of other new
fixes/patches that were released this week that bear mention.

LOG365.ZIP is a new version of LOGIN.EXE which adds a statement
NO_DEFAULT that you can include.  If this statement is in the system
login script, then it is a signal to LOGIN.EXE *NOT* to execute a default
user login script if the user logging in does not have a user login
script.  (HOORAY!)

And today, I see there was an upload of NDSTAC.ZIP (or was it
NDSTCK.ZIP), which is a patch for non-dedicated NetWare 2.15c and NetWare
2.2 to add more stack space for interrupt servicing on non-dedicated
servers.  If you are running any non-dedicated servers, this patch is
worth a look...I've spent a lot of time ensuring TSRs that I write are
compatible with ND servers, and stack issues are most often the cause of
compatibility problems.  (You'll also see this with keyboard lockup
problems running some Microsoft applications on ND servers.)

And in case you missed it...INTRUD.ZIP, which is a patch for the
"intruder lockout" bug in NetWare 2.2 (where an intruder lockout occuring
can cause your server to GPI abend or just start acting flaky) was also
recently released.

Happy networking...

- Brett (Infinite Technologies)