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From: eva@socrates.esd.sgi.com (Eva Manolis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: mailbox
Message-ID: <1990Sep24.203747.545@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Date: 24 Sep 90 20:37:47 GMT
References: <501@texhrc.UUCP> <9009222055.AA00571@paling.cwi.nl> <1990Sep24.174807.26980@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
Reply-To: eva@socrates.esd.sgi.com (Eva Manolis)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Entry Systems Division
Lines: 47

In article <1990Sep24.174807.26980@odin.corp.sgi.com>, eva@socrates.esd.sgi.com (Eva Manolis) writes:
|> In article <9009222055.AA00571@paling.cwi.nl>, robertl@cwi.nl writes:
|> |> 
|> |> 	> mailbox: Bad file number 
|> |> 	> any ideas what's happening ??
|> |> 
|> |> We had that too. In our case 'fam' couldn't be launched by
|> |> 'inetd' properly. 
|> 
|> I little info on 'fam' here....
|> 
|> fam will NEVER do an 'ls -l' of a directory. 
|> IF ( and only if) the directory is NFS mounted ( which seems to be 
|> the case for Robert van Liere ) 'fam' will 'stat' the directory to
|> track changes. If the files reside on a local file system, there is
|> no polling ( no 'stats' ). fam works with events generated when the filesystem
|> is changed, so it's as cheap and low overhead as it can be.
|> For NFS directories and files, the stat's are every 3 seconds.
|> 
|> As far as having trouble starting fam, since fam uses inetd if the
|> machine is having network problems, fam will have trouble starting.
|> Also, inetd uses YP, so if you have YP configured on, you need to make
|> sure that the YP server knows about the 'fam' service.
|>    ( a message will appear in /usr/adm/SYSLOG, to clue you in on fam problems)
|> 
|> To make sure YP is set up correctly, find out who your YP server is
|>    % ypwhich
|>     <some machine name here>
|> 
|> then, login onto your yp server, and make sure that the /etc/rpc file contains
|> a line in it that says  
|>     sgi_fam	391002
|> 
|> If it doesn't, add it.
|> Then ( as root )
|> 	% cd /usr/etc/rpc; make
|> 

Sorry, I meant 
     	cd /usr/etc/yp; make
  ( and I've been informed, on new model suns, its
	cd /var/yp; make

|> Everything should be ok now.
|> 
|> Have fun
|> -eva