Horrible: Apache corrupting files?

[Alex de Kruijff]

On Tue, Apr 25, 2006 at 03:41:18PM +0000, Ben Paley wrote:
> On Friday 21 April 2006 00:31, Alex de Kruijff wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 10:17:47AM +0000, Ben Paley wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I have Apache 2 running on FreeBSD 6.1-PRERELEASE on a laptop on a small
> > > office lan. Whenever one of the other machines (mostly Macs) makes a
> > > request for a certain page on my machine, it is delivered succesfully but
> > > the file itself is absolutely scrambled beyond recognition into a binary
> > > file. Subsequent requests rescramble it into a different but equally
> > > nonsense binary.
> > >
> > > I've looked with a binary editor and it really is completely messed up. I
> > > can restore the file from a good archive copy, but every time the same
> > > thing happens.
> > >
> > > The file was originally created on a mac by Flash (it's a 1.1k html file
> > > which just embeds a flash movie). Recently I copied it to and from a
> > > Solaris box via ftp from an Windows NT machine (although it wasn't opened
> > > afaik - a long story, clearly, which also involves a usb flash drive...).
> > >
> > > Anyone have any ideas? The file itself is inconsequential, but the fact
> > > of such blatant and relentless data corruption is very worrying to me! I
> > > don't know if it's the file or my system or some combination... I'd
> > > really appreciate some advice, I've been staring at it for two days and
> > > I'm starting to bite my nails...
> >
> > How about setting the permission so that the file can not be changed.
> > Then access the file and see if a process complains about not being able
> > to change the file?
> >
> > P.S. I find it hard to beleave apache2 does this. I run apache2 myself
> > and don't have this.
> 
> I've set the permissions to 444 and I'm still seeing the same corruption, so 
> it must be something running as root, or something quite low level. No 
> console messages and I don't really know where to look for error logs - I 
> think you're right and it's not apache.
> 
> I've started to notice some other strange corruptions - some php files seem to 
> become binary on a remote machine, even though my local copies are fine. 
> Perhaps it's the server... but we've never had this trouble before, and it 
> seems a little too much like what's happening on my machine to be a 
> coincidence. One file I tried uploading with two different gui ftp clients 
> and via command line, in ascii, binary and auto mode, and again the same 
> thing happened each time - my browser complained of unknown ascii characters 
> and kate (text editor) told me it was a binary file even though it looked ok. 
> I tried changing the encoding and that made no difference.
> 
> I am actually quite worried now. There seems to be something holding all these 
> occurences together, but I can't quite work out what it is.
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas where to look? I'd really appreciate it!

My quess it that its hardware related. Your HD could be dying.

--
Alex