ado@elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson) (03/25/86)
Here's some surprising output I got on a 4.1bsd system running on an 11/750 (where, for the sake of brevity, I've "mv"ed some files from the "/dev" directory to a subdirectory named "/dev/wrong"): Script started on Mon Mar 24 17:11:39 1986 Warning: no access to tty; thus no job control in this shell... % /bin/ls -l /dev/wrong total 888248 c--------- 1 root 4, 16 Jan 9 10:11 rhp2a c--------- 1 root 4, 17 Jan 9 10:11 rhp2b cr-------- 1 root 4, 18 Jan 9 10:11 rhp2c % /usr/ucb/ls -l /dev/wrong total 888248 c--------- 1 root 4, 16 Jan 9 10:11 rhp2a c--------- 1 root 4, 17 Jan 9 10:11 rhp2b cr-------- 1 root 4, 18 Jan 9 10:11 rhp2c % /bin/du /dev/wrong 888249 /dev/wrong % script done on Mon Mar 24 17:12:00 1986 As it turned out, the surprising "total" figures came about because: 1. The inodes associated with the above special files had erroneous non-zero "file size" elements. 2. "fsck" failed to either complain about or fix (read: zero) the non-zero sizes. (Alternately: the kernel returned the non-zero sizes of these special files when the files were "stat"ed, rather than always returning a zero size value for special files.) 3. "/bin/ls", "/usr/ucb/ls", and "/bin/du" all made use of the incorrect file sizes in computing disk usage totals. I'd appreciate knowing if anyone else out there gets wild output from /bin/du /dev --especially if you get them on 4.2 or 4.3 systems. I'd also appreciate any insights as to where the "right" place (fsck? the kernel? ls and du?) to fix the problem is. -- Bugs is a Warner Brothers trademark. Bug is a Volkswagen trademark. -- UUCP: ..decvax!seismo!elsie!ado ARPA: elsie!ado@seismo.ARPA DEC, VAX, Elsie & Ado are Digital, Borden & Shakespeare trademarks.