/etc files

[doug at safeport.com]

On Sun, 30 Aug 2015, Polytropon wrote:

> 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 at 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 at 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 at 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. :-)
>

On RELEASE FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE #0 r274401 there is no /etc/enabled. What 
sequence causes this to be created?

I frequently generate files with weird names by being careless with the mouse, 
ie doing a cut-and-paste and an immediate double-click that catches some portion 
of the screen above the command line. If you can reboot nothing fatal was done. 
You can usually pick out all such files by 'ls -lt | head -<some n>'. Any files 
past your last intensional change would be suspect. Any zero length files were 
created in some fashion similar to this.