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Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 16:51:56 GMT
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Resent-From: "Philip Aston" <paston AT bea DOT com>
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Resent-Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 16:48:41 +0000
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From: "Philip Aston" <paston AT bea DOT com>
To: cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com
Subject: touch caused BSOD!


I've recently upgraded to W2K. Wanting to use inet-utils I ran
iu-config, and was somewhat shocked to get the blue screen of death.

I investigated this further. The BSOD occurred if I touch a file in
/etc:

	$ touch /etc/abc
or
	$ > /etc/abc

Touching files outside of /etc doesn't cause the problem, nor does
creating files there with explorer.

The following are examples from the corresponding event logs:

  The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was:
  0x0000000a (0x005c006d, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x80454c5d).
  Microsoft Windows 2000 [v15.2195]. A dump was saved in:
  C:\WINNT\Minidump\Mini012002-07.dmp.

  The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was:
  0x0000000a (0x005c006d, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x80454c5d).
  Microsoft Windows 2000 [v15.2195]. A dump was saved in:
  C:\WINNT\Minidump\Mini012002-07.dmp.

This is on:

CYGWIN_NT-5.0 PASTON 1.3.5(0.47/3/2) 2001-11-13 23:16 i686 unknown


Following hints from
  http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-11.t/msg00167.html

this looks to be a generalisation of the setup BSOD, (setup also
writes to /etc), which I have also experienced several times.

I disabled McAfee, but the BSOD still occurred. I half suspect that
McAfee leaves some horrible hook lying around that causes this.

After about 5 or 6 reboots, I stripped all the processes down to the
minimum, ran the touch from the vanilla cygwin "DOS" window, and I
couldn't repeat the problem. Turned McAfee on again, and fully enabled
it, and I can create still create files in /etc/. I'm about to reboot
and try again....

... and BSOD has returned.

Much playing later and I'm not that much wiser. AFAICT, the following
are required to cause the problem:

 1. rxvt started from my desktop shortcut. The shortcut does

    E:\home\philipa\bin\run.exe /bin/perl /work/src/scripts/misc/random-rxvt.pl -e bash

    But you don't need to run the touch from this shell.

 2. McAfee process running, but not necessarily enabled. (I'm not
    completely sure on this one).

Note, rxvt has to be started from the shortcut to cause the BSOD. Now,
my random-rxvt.pl script (listed below - it just creates a randomly
coloured terminal) has the following comment which I wrote over 5
minutes ago so can't remember anything about it. It seems pretty
interesting:

 # Invoking rxvt creates a parent "sh" (replacing the perl process) and
 # a child "rxvt". When the script is launched from the command line,
 # this exec works as expected. For unknown reasons, when the script is
 # launched from a desktop shortcut, this exec causes a perl processes
 # to appear in the windows task manager. It doesn't appear in the
 # output of ps -W for instance. Seems harmless...

I feel frustrtated and clueless. Does anyone have any ideas?

- Phil


#!/bin/perl -w
eval 'exec /bin/perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}' if $running_under_some_shell;
local $running_under_some_shell; # Shutup -w

#
# $Log: random-rxvt.pl,v $
# Revision 1.4  2001/11/10 12:07:28  philipa
# Perl and rxvt are now part of the cygwin distribution.
#
# Revision 1.3  2001/03/15 18:35:28  philipa
# Perl has moved.
#
# Revision 1.2  2000/11/28 21:30:31  philipa
# Comment weirdness.
#
# Revision 1.1  2000/11/20 22:56:38  philipa
# Spin the bottle.
#
#

#
# Example shortcut target:
# D:\home\philipa\bin\run.exe  /bin/perl /src/scripts/misc/random-rxvt.pl -e bash
#

use strict;

# Standard options
my $options="-fn 'Lucida Console-10' -geometry 80x40 -sl 5000 -sr -si @ARGV";

# Some good looking colours.
my @lightColours = (
		    "LightBlue",
#		    "LimeGreen",
		    "MediumAquamarine",
		    "MistyRose",
		    "OldLace",
		    "PaleGoldenRod",
		    "PaleTurquoise",
		    "bisque",
		    "burlywood1",
		    "cornsilk3",
		    "gainsboro",
		    "lavender",
		    "snow3",
		    "thistle3",
		    "wheat",
		   );

my $colours=\@lightColours;

my $background = @$colours[rand(@$colours)];

# Invoking rxvt creates a parent "sh" (replacing the perl process) and
# a child "rxvt". When the script is launched from the command line,
# this exec works as expected. For unknown reasons, when the script is
# launched from a desktop shortcut, this exec causes a perl processes
# to appear in the windows task manager. It doesn't appear in the
# output of ps -W for instance. Seems harmless...
exec("/bin/rxvt -bg $background $options");


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