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Re: Solved: on Solaris, "couldn't wait for child '...' completion: Nochild processes"
No! The error message is because I used 'error()' instead of 'debug()'.
That's changed in the 2.1.0p1 release, I believe. (I don't have access
to it right now.) This was discussed last week for 2.1.0 - just change
error() to debug() for those two messages.

If you're not using 2.1.0p1, please check it out - other bugs are fixed
there too. I'll post a cure for the 'missing fixprogs' problem later
today, just install ssh_prng_cmds manually until then.

Don't set the timeout so high. It's too much of a delay even with the
delay at 100ms. 2.1.0p1 calculates the timeout differently, too. Work is
under way to reduce the builtin PRNG delay to something that you won't
notice. Expect a patch soon.

Those error messages are just noise.

Ta,
-Andre'

Bladt Norbert wrote:
>
> > John Horne [SMTP:J.Horne@plymouth.ac.uk] wrote:
> >
> > Emanuel Borsboom <emanuel@heatdeath.org> wrote:
> >> Trying to install the portable OpenSSH on Solaris 2.6. Compiling from
> >> openssh-2.1.0.tar.gz using gcc. Compiles and installs fine. sshd
> >> starts fine. First connection from another system works. Child sshd is
> >> forked, but the parent dies and logs:
> >>
> >> May 16 11:40:56 qtrade-dev sshd[6510]: error: Couldn't wait for child
> >> '/usr=/bin/ls -alni' completion: No child processes
> >> May 16 11:40:56 qtrade-dev last message repeated 3 times
> >> May 16 11:40:56 qtrade-dev sshd[6510]: error: -1 Command '/usr/bin/ls
> >> -alni=': select() failed: Interrupted system call
> >> May 16 11:40:56 qtrade-dev sshd[6510]: error: Couldn't wait for child
> >> '/usr=/bin/ls -alni' completion: No child processes
> >>
> >[rest snipped]
>
> > I too get this on a Sun Ultra 10, Solaris 8 using SSL 0.9.5a; SSH 2.1.0
> and
> > gcc version 2.95.2. I'll take a look, but don't expect anything since I'm
> > not really a C programmer! (sorry)
> Me too on Solaris 7.
> However, I am a C programmer and I was able to fix it.
> The timeout ("interrupted system call" message above)
> occurs because the timeout for the entropy commands is
> to small (100 msec).
> I raised it to 2000 msec (500 msec was too small, too)
> and now it works without these error messages.
> The messages "No child process" is a consequence of the
> interrupted system call message.
>
> The location to fix is in config.h:
>
> /* Builtin PRNG command timeout */
> #define ENTROPY_TIMEOUT_MSEC 100
>
> I changed the original 100 to 2000, did a "make sshd" and that's it.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Norbert.
>
> P.S. The real fix for the next release would be to either
> ask for the timeout value, determine it automagically in
> some way or change the hard-coded value of 100 in the "configure"
> script to something more reasonable.
>
> --
> Norbert Bladt
> ATAG debis Informatik, TZ1 - Z364
> Industriestrasse 1, CH 3052-Zollikofen
> E-Mail: norbert.bladt@adi.ch Tel.: +41 31 915 3964 Fax: +41 31 915 3640
Re: Solved: on Solaris, "couldn't wait for child '...' completio [ In reply to ]
On 19-May-00 at 14:20:26 Andre Lucas wrote:
> If you're not using 2.1.0p1, please check it out - other bugs are fixed
> there too. I'll post a cure for the 'missing fixprogs' problem later
> today, just install ssh_prng_cmds manually until then.
>
Many thanks to the people who have replied with fixes. I noticed that
'configure' had a '--with-entropy-timeout' option which could be used to set
the value as well.

I have obtained 2.1.0p1 and it seems to work fine.

Next problem though is that it (sshd I assume) seems to create
/var/adm/utmp. I ran configure with '--with-utmpx' which is fine (to use
utmpx) but utmp itself shouldn't be present. The Solaris man page says:

The utmp and wtmp database files are obsolete and are no
longer present on the system. They have been superseded by
the extended database contained in the utmpx and wtmpx data-
base files. See utmpx(4).

It is possible for /var/adm/utmp to reappear on the system.
This would most likely occur if a third party application
that still uses utmp recreates the file if it finds it miss-
ing. This file should not be allowed to remain on the sys-
tem. The user should investigate to determine which applica-
tion is recreating this file.

The file does remain on the system and gets flagged as an error:

May 19 08:03:39 bb /usr/lib/utmpd[223]: [ID 268571 daemon.warning] WARNING:
/var/adm/utmp exists!

once per hour on the system. I could change syslog so as not to see the
message, but I think that is getting round it and not solving it.

Many thanks,

John.

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John Horne, University of Plymouth, UK Tel: +44 (0)1752 233914
E-mail: jhorne@plymouth.ac.uk
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