[news.admin] why did my news software get stuck?

chet@arc.UUCP (Chet Wood) (09/19/89)

I installed Patch 18 to B news software on Sept. 13. Everything was
working fine until this article came in and created some kind of lock:

Sep 16 00:08	apple	received <1282@tekbspa.UUCP> ng misc.headlines subj 'Re: Sweden is not free?!? (Was: more stuff about socialism and such rot)' from mathon@tekbspa.UUCP (John D. Mathon )

cron ran expire and trimlib at 1 AM successfully, but almost all the
news that came in from then until the system was rebooted Monday
morning was not posted, but remained spooled in the uucp/D. directory.
I also found some news in the news spool/.rnews directory which was
put there while expire was running.

Expire did not run as scheduled on Sep. 17 or Sep. 18, though cron was
certainly working-- the uucp cron entry busily deleted the X.* files
corresponding to the stuck D. files.

Following are relevant entries from various log files. Any suggestions
would be appreciated. The system is running on a Sun-3/280 under SunOS
4.0.1.

**** More ****

*** from errlog ***
Sep 17 08:52	<1282@tekbspa.UUCP>	inews: Article <1282@tekbspa.uucp> locked up
Sep 17 09:02	<1282@tekbspa.UUCP>	inews: Article <1282@tekbspa.uucp> locked up

*** from log *** (no entries between 00:08 and 13:29)
Sep 16 13:29	apple	received <WOMBAT.89Sep15235849@claris.com> ng comp.sys.apple subj 'NDA's & tools' from wombat@claris.com (Scott Lindsey)
Sep 17 08:52	apple	Article <1282@tekbspa.uucp> locked up
Sep 17 08:52	apple	Duplicate article <7059@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> rejected. Path: apple!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!ucsdhub!sdcsvax!gremlin!jarrett

	*** (about a dozen similar "duplicate article" entries here) ***

Sep 17 08:52	apple	received <1282@tekbspa.UUCP> ng misc.headlines subj 'Re: Sweden is not free?!? (Was: more stuff about socialism and such rot)' from mathon@tekbspa.UUCP (John D. Mathon )
Sep 17 08:52	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 08:53	apple	received <26451@dhw68k.cts.com> ng comp.binaries.mac subj 'Buckaroo Banzai Sounds (part 3 of 4)' from moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer)
Sep 17 08:53	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 08:54	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 08:55	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 08:56	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 08:57	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 08:58	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 08:59	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 09:00	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 09:01	apple	waiting on lock for /tmp/L<1282@tekbspa.uucp>
Sep 17 09:02	apple	Article <1282@tekbspa.uucp> locked up
Sep 17 09:02	apple	received <1282@tekbspa.UUCP> ng misc.headlines subj 'Re: Sweden is not free?!? (Was: more stuff about socialism and such rot)' from mathon@tekbspa.UUCP (John D. Mathon )
Sep 18 07:41	apple	received <855@madnix.UUCP> ng comp.sys.amiga subj 'Re: Bay area Amiga dealers' from perry@madnix.UUCP (Perry Kivolowitz)

*** from /var/adm/messages ***

Sep 17 08:48:24 arc login: ROOT LOGIN ttyp0 FROM sparcy
Sep 17 08:54:37 arc login: ROOT LOGIN console
Sep 17 14:29:41 arc login: ROOT LOGIN ttyp0 FROM mac
Sep 17 18:42:19 arc login: ROOT LOGIN ttyp0 FROM maxi
Sep 17 22:30:13 arc vmunix: Portmapper not responding; still trying
Sep 17 22:30:13 arc vmunix: zs1: silo overflow
Sep 17 22:30:13 arc vmunix: Portmapper not responding; still trying
Sep 17 22:30:13 arc vmunix: Portmapper not responding; still trying
Sep 17 22:30:14 arc vmunix: Portmapper ok
Sep 17 22:30:15 arc last message repeated 2 times
Sep 17 22:30:16 arc vmunix: Portmapper not responding; still trying
Sep 17 22:30:16 arc last message repeated 3 times
Sep 18 00:00:16 arc vmunix: Portmapper not responding; still trying

*** ad nauseum until system rebooted by system administration at 07:40***

then the news starts flowing normally.
 
*** uucp LOGFILE shows news coming in and rnews starting up regularly
    with no reported problems throughout the period. ***


Thanks,

Chet...

--
Chet Wood                       ~                         (408)727-3357
     arc!chet@apple.COM         .  Advansoft Research Corporation
          chet@arc.UUCP         .       4301 Great America Parkway
               apple!arc!chet   .            Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA

wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle) (09/20/89)

In article <CHET.89Sep18115820@sparcy.arc.UUCP> 
chet@arc.UUCP (Chet Wood) writes:
>I installed Patch 18 to B news software on Sept. 13. Everything was
>working fine until this article came in and created some kind of lock:
[...]
>would be appreciated. The system is running on a Sun-3/280 under SunOS
>4.0.1.

We just had the same problem here.  lockd had died and inews was stuck.
The sys manager just typed:

% /usr/etc/rpc.lockd

and we are back up.  I'd appreciate some patches to news to fix
this problem on SunOS.  We are running SunOS 4.0.3 Sun-3/280 as well.

-Mitch