Bug 1376

Summary: Unnecessary error messages when tmpwatch can't lstat a file
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: jve
Component: tmpwatchAssignee: Preston Brown <pbrown>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 5.2   
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OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 1999-04-08 17:12:29 UTC Type: ---
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Description jve 1999-03-01 09:18:24 UTC 
Recently, Cron sent me this little tidbit:

> Subject: Cron <root@proxy> /usr/sbin/tmpwatch 2400 /tmp
/var/tmp
>
>error: error: error: error: error: failed to lstat
/tmp/sort0388800000: No such file or directory
>failed to lstat /tmp/sort0388800001: No such file or
directory
>failed to lstat /tmp/sort0388800002: No such file or
directory
>failed to lstat /tmp/sort0388800003: No such file or
directory
>failed to lstat /tmp/sort0388800004: No such file or
directory

As it turns out, these files went away between tmpwatch
reading the directory and checking each file.

There's no reason to report this kind of error, is there?

After all, these are *temporary* files, subject to removal
at any time by the program that generated them.

Also, I don't know if this next problem has ever been fixed
since 4.2, but tmpwatch will never, ever delete an empty
directory, because in the process of checking the directory
for files, the atime gets changed.

So tmpwatch needs to save and restore the atime for any
sub-directory that it checks.

    John Van Essen <jve>
Comment 1 David Lawrence 1999-04-06 18:49:59 UTC 
This is being assigned to a developer for further review.
Comment 2 Preston Brown 1999-04-08 17:12:59 UTC 
you may now specify a --quiet or -q option to tmpwatch to make it not
warn you about these errors, if you prefer.  It is really a preference
thing.

Also, I have taken over maintenance of tmpwatch and fixed the other
bug you reported where directories were never removed because their
time was always getting updated.  The directory atime and mtime are
now restored after it is finished being processed.

These features are in tmpwatch-1.6-1 and later.