error in SYSLOG on smtd

[Vernon Schryver]

In article <9011230735.aa05649 at ADM.BRL.MIL>, SOFPJF at VM.UOGUELPH.CA (Peter Jaspers-Fayer) writes:
> re 3.3.1 SYSLOG message:
> >Nov 19 10:41:17 ccfiris inetd[114]: /usr/etc/smtd: No such file or directory
> 
> 3.3.1 inetd.conf has a new line referring to a new driver (smtd) for a
> piece of hardware (fddi?) that nobody owns.

You're right about it being FDDI, but you might be wrong the nobody part.

>      Why this was not delivered as a comment, (with instructions to the
> .001% of us who have said object to uncomment it out) so that the 99.999%
> of us who don't have it don't get bugged by this silly message in SYSLOG
> was (hopefully) and oversight.

Some of us kind of hope that more than 1 in 10,000 will want to buy FDDI.

We shipped it that way so FDDI would install on 3.3 without pain.  Many
people are willing and able to edit inetd.conf.  Many others are not.  I
felt strongly that we would get fewer telephone calls from people who
noticed the stray line than from others who failed to RTFM and correctly
edit inetd.conf.  The worst that happens with the extra line is the extra
syslog complaint, while the worst that happens with the commented-line is a
system that does not work.

Yet another point was that there are already several optional products with
inetd.conf lines.  For example, if you don't install fam, you'll get other
messages.

Before anyone suggests an installation script that would automatically edit
inetd.conf, please imagine what can and will go wrong when such a script
meets everyone's wonderful improvements to inetd.conf.

Perhaps you'll be mollified to hear that we changed stuff, and are not
running the SMT deamon out of inetd.conf.  I think we got the offending
line out of IRIX 3.3.2.

I am happy that you are evidently not complaining about the SGI feature of
complaining about non-existent deamons.  That feature has sped up the
resolution of many telephone calls from people who had decided to save disk
space or suffered the ravages of fsck.  We've talked about extending the
inetd.conf syntax to indicate that some deamons are optional and should not
generate syslog complaints.  Nothing satisfying has appeared.


>     On the other hand it may be part of a a malicious plot by subversives
> within SGI to drive us all crazy ;-)              (N.B. smiley, OK, SGI?)

Nope, its just an indication of occupational craziness.  But thanks for
the compliment of being called subversive.


Vernon Schryver,    vjs at sgi.com