[NTLUG:Discuss] "You Don't Exist: Go Away!"

[Christopher Browne]

I am having an unfortunate situation where a machine periodically gets
somewhat 'wedged up' such that:
  a) Port services that check for user IDs die;
  b) Permissions on files apparently "disappear";
  c) Pretty much anything that checks IDs against /etc/passwd gets
     hosed.

This does _not_ appear to be the result of a hack; it seems moderately
"time based," probably relating to some resource filling up thereby
making {utmp|PAM} throw up.

Other interesting facts:
- It seems to happen _around_ once a day.  But not greatly predictable.
   Oct 27, 03:38
   Oct 27, 21:32
   Oct 30, 08:02
   Oct 31, about 1:56am
   Nov 1, between 9:00 and 9:02 pm.

- I don't need to reboot to get everything to "reset;" if I drop to
  runlevel 1 via "init 1," and then head back to "init 3", this seems
  to suffice to clear things up.

- Debian Unstable Pretty Much Up To Date.
  Linux knuth 2.2.14 #5 Sat May 6 07:29:45 CDT 2000 i586 unknown

The two things I've seen looking on Google that match the symptoms are:

a) "Oops.  You deleted /etc/passwd."

   Not the case.

b) Something vague involving utmp being "somehow messed up."

Anyone run into this sort of thing before?
--
cbbrowne at hex.net - <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/linux.html>
God is real unless declared integer.