Unix Permission Problem After a CPU Crash

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:15:35PM -0400, Fairlight wrote:
> > Can anybody shed light on what is going on here?  I have never seen
> > anything like it before, and the file is one of the most important in the
> > system.  Furthermore, the user does not have a recent backup because his
> > tape drive failed and he was in the process of getting a new one.
> 
> Gotta hate timing like that.
> 
> Try an fsck on the relevant partition.

I don't often disagree with Mark, but this is one of those times.

The purpose of fsck is to *fix the filesystem structure*, possibly at
the expense of some of the data stored therein.

If the data's precious, fsck is not your tool; it may whack it before
you get the chance to say no.  (The stories of how I acquired this
knowledge would curl your hair.  :-})

If there is no user 103 in your password file (which would be odd,
since SCO started at 100, usually), that would explain the ls, though
not the problem.

If there *is*, then the problem is coming from somewhere else.

If you haven't tried Single user mode, try that.  Try moving the entire
directory -- or better, copying it, preferably to a different
filesystem, if you have one.

This may rebuild what might be, as Mark suggests, a blown inode.

But really, at this point, you need to be calling a filesystem
mechanic, if the data's that critical.  I've done some fsdb patching on
SCO, but it's been at least 15 years...

Cheers,
-- jra

-- 
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