ksh dumping core

[Seth Robertson]

In article <834 at fozzy.UUCP> fail at fozzy.UUCP (Dennis Fail) writes:
>goes to another
>workstation, logs in, and does some work and then goes back to his
>workstation and try to use his windows that he was working in, they will
>dump core. This doesn't happen all the time, but with enough frequency
>to be a problem.
>
>   I've isolated the problem to be in the history function of ksh

>As a side note, we had had problems with the previous version of ksh
>corrupting the history file after an rlogin, but it would never dump core.

The way I solved the corrupted history file problem was to change the history
file for each pty.  I assume that this would solve your problem also.

>From my .kshrc: (The file that gets read in every time a ksh starts.  If you
		 do not have this feature, you could stick it in .profile)
------------------------------------------------------------
##
## Source the people's startup file.
. /public/etc/kshsetup
##
## Set it up so that it prints the contents of ~/.face when I log out
if test "$0" = "su" -o "$0" = "-su"
 then
# WatchOut gets set if there is already another history file existing
# with the same name (i.e. don't delete it)
  if test "$WatchOut"
   then
#   Keep the history file and don't print a closing screen
#   (Because if you su, you don't want your history file to disappear :-)
    trap 'trap 0; exec ~/.kshout save no; kill -9 0; exit; exit' 0
   else
#   Delete the history file and don't print a closing screen
    trap 'trap 0; exec ~/.kshout kill no; kill -9 0; exit; exit' 0
  fi
 else 
  if test "$0" = "-ksh"
   then
#   Delete the histry file and print a closing screen
    trap 'trap 0; exec ~/.kshout kill yes; kill -9 0; exit; exit' 0
   else
#   Delete the history file but don't print a closing screen
    trap 'trap 0; exec ~/.kshout kill no; kill -9 0; exit; exit' 0
   fi
 fi
------------------------------------------------------------

>From my .kshout
------------------------------------------------------------
: ${tty:=`tty`}
: ${pty:=`basename $tty`}
: ${host:=`hostname`}
# If argv[1] is `kill' then we are supposed to get rid of the
# ksh history file
if test "$1" = "kill"
 then
  if test "$pty" = "console"
   then
    rm -f .ksh.$host.* ~/core
   else
    : ${HISTFILE:="$HOME/.ksh.$host.$pty.$USER"}
    rm -f "$HISTFILE" ~/core
   fi
 fi
# If argv[2] is `yes' then we are supposed to print a closing screen
if test "$2" = "yes"
 then
  clear
  cat ~/.face
 fi
------------------------------------------------------------

>From /public/etc/kshsetup:
------------------------------------------------------------
: ${tty:=`tty`}
: ${pty:=`basename $tty`}
: ${host:=`hostname`}
if test -f "$HOME/.ksh.$host.$pty.$USER"
 then
  WatchOut="true"
 fi
HISTFILE="$HOME/.ksh.$host.$pty.$USER"
. /public/etc/kshenv  # Set up some special features
------------------------------------------------------------

That should solve the problem by having a seperate history file for each
invocation of ksh.  I'll include the public/etc/kshenv for those who are
interested:
------------------------------------------------------------
: ${tty:=`tty`}
: ${pty:=`basename $tty`}

if test "$pty" = "console"
 then
# 3.4 machines don't run sunview
  if test -d /var
   then
    :
   else
    alias sunview=suntools
   fi
 else
  alias sunview="echo 'This is not allowed unless you are on the console.'"
  alias suntools="echo 'This is not allowed unless you are on the console.'"
 fi  

alias logout="exit"
# Plus some more CTR specific stuff
------------------------------------------------------------

Hope this helps,

                                        -Seth Robertson
                                         seth at ctr.columbia.edu
-- 
                                        -Seth Robertson
                                         seth at ctr.columbia.edu