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Date:      Sun, 30 Aug 2015 19:33:37 +0200
From:      Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To:        "William A. Mahaffey III" <wam@hiwaay.net>
Cc:        FreeBSD Questions !!!! <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: /etc files
Message-ID:  <20150830193337.2b7757ce.freebsd@edvax.de>
In-Reply-To: <55E332E4.2070400@hiwaay.net>
References:  <55E32375.9060804@hiwaay.net> <20150830182940.38e81873.freebsd@edvax.de> <55E332E4.2070400@hiwaay.net>

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On Sun, 30 Aug 2015 11:49:50 -0453.75, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
> On 08/30/15 11:35, Polytropon wrote:
> > On Sun, 30 Aug 2015 10:43:59 -0453.75, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
> >> I notice several files in my /etc directory whose filenames end in ':'.
> >> Are these system files ? If not, can I usefully delete them :-) ? TIA &
> >> have aq nice weekend.
> > Never heared of those... can you provide an example?
> > Maybe some timestamped backup files? But who would
> > store them in /etc? And why should they end in ':'?
> >
> > Aside of file names, what do those files contain?
> > Can you show or tell?
> >
> > And what are their creation timestamps?
> >
> > As it has been suggested, add the "src" component
> > in /etc/freebsd-update.conf and fetch+install it,
> > then compare to /usr/src/etc, which is the "template"
> > from which /etc will be generated.
> >
> > To summarize: Files ending in ':' probably do not
> > belong to /etc.
> >
> >
> >
> > COM1: :-)
> 
> 
>  From last nights backup:
> 
> 
> [wam@Q6600, ~, 11:46:03am] 1369 % lf /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/*:
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/enabled: /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/fingerprints: 
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/mirror_type: /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/signature_type:
> [wam@Q6600, ~, 11:46:09am] 1370 % file !$
> file /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/*:
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/enabled::        ASCII text
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/fingerprints::   empty
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/mirror_type::    empty
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/signature_type:: empty

Empty files and a text file, and ending in ':', very strange.
However, a process with root privilege must have written them
because /etc is (or _should be_) writable by root only.

What does /etc/enabled: contain?



> [wam@Q6600, ~, 11:46:14am] 1371 % ll  !$
> ll /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/*:
> -rw-r--r--. 1 wam users 143851520 Sep  3  2014 
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/enabled:
> -rw-r--r--. 1 wam users         0 Sep  3  2014 
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/fingerprints:
> -rw-r--r--. 1 wam users         0 Sep  3  2014 
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/mirror_type:
> -rw-r--r--. 1 wam users         0 Sep  3  2014 
> /home/rsync/Jaguar/etc/signature_type:


And _this_ is very strange: Those look like user files. How
did they get (a) into the original /etc, or (b) into its
backup which you're showing the listing from?



> I did the mod to freebsd-update.conf & did a fetch, but not an install 
> (yet), is that required ?

Yes. The "fetch" operation will only download the changes,
but "install" will actually put them in place. Of course
you could manually extract what "fetch" has already down-
loaded and find /usr/src.

However, none of the names looks familiar to me in a
context that they would somehow deserve to exist in /etc...



> I see no /usr/src/etc directory after the 
> fetch, so I surmise that the update is required, no ?

Correct. If not present yet, it will be generated and
populated automatically when you do the "install" step.



> If so, I will do 
> that from a console login to minimize disturbances to the force, not the 
> XFCE/rxvt ssh-root-login I currently have open ....

It shouldn't matter. It's basically just an archive
decompression process. :-)




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...



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