man and who commands on Solaris 10

I was trying to install one application on our Soalris 10 Intel development server and made some unnecessary changes to the file access permissions including many system files under /var etc. After that we have set most of the permissions ( I am not 100% sure) as usual and now the problem is with man and who commands.The output is here for you reference and tips.

[root@yakdev1]/ >uname -a
SunOS yakdev1 5.10 Generic_Patch i86pc i386 i86pc[root@yakdev1]/ >
[root@yakdev1]/ >

[root@yakdev1]/ >man date
Reformatting page. Please Wait...nroff: cannot create temp file.
done

[root@yakdev1]/ >

[root@yakdev1]/ >who
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2560
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 512
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 256
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 1536
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 1536
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2048
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2048
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2048
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2048
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 1792
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2048
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2048
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2048
when maximum is 10
who: Error --- entry has ut_type of 2048
when maximum is 10
trial1 pts/2 Jul 27 10:13 ......
trial2 pts/1 Jul27 09:00 ......

How to rectify these two issues and get the desired usual output.

Thanks in advance

The first one is a permissions problem. man uses things like /tmp to write temporary files to in the troff processing. On my Solaris 10 Intel box the /tmp directory permissions are:



which is a "chmod 1777 /tmp"

For the second issue who reads /var/adm/utmpx. I might give up on that one and do a "cat /dev/null > /var/adm/utmpx" to reset it.

Hi Yellow Belt

Thanks for that.
Now who is working fine and giving the output.

About the second issue i.e., man command, I have checked the permissions for /tmp and they are there exactlyr as required. I still tried with "chmod 1777 /tmp" .Even after that man command is producing the same error.

Once again thanks in advance and I appreciate that.

Hi White Belt

I am sorry for the typo.

"Hi Yellow Belt".

The belt is for how many posts you have. I'm stdunbar...

Try this:


The "somefile" argument will be any file name you choose. Basically what you're doing is seeing what system commands are run and where the problem is. If you zip up the file and attach it to a post I will be glad to help you figure out what is going on.

Hi stdunbar

I run the command (truss -f -o somefile man date) and directed the output to a file called /tmp/file123. I zipped the file123 and named it as myzip. Now Pl let me know how to attach this zipped file (myzip) to this forum's email.

Thanks

When you post a message you can scroll down a little to see the Manage Attachments button. When you select that it'll let you attach the file.

Hi stdunbar

Thanks a lot for your help. I tried a lot to copy the zipped file to my office email so that it can be attached to this forum here. But unfortunately /usr/sbin/sendmail has been corrupted by the previous play arounds.We are about to rebuild the system.

Once again I appreciate your kind hearted support.

That sounds like a good idea given that you don't know what other things are lurking on the system that might be broken.

As a general philosophy, very few "system" files need to be modified in a Unix base O/S. Yes, there are a few configuration type things for things like sending mail and adding users, but it sounds like things got a little over that on your system. Make small changes, backup any file that you want to change before changing it, and make sure that the previous changes did what you want before moving on. Do as little as possible as the user "root". There are some things you must do as root, but limit it whenever possible.

Good Luck!

Hi stdunbar

Very nice of you. Your suggestions are right especially with the usage of root authority in the *nix environment. Fortunately this is a development server and not a big deal. But you are right. Procedure is procedure and ultimately it develops good habits/good environment/good professionalism.

Once again thanks for all your time and help.