[CentOS] /var/log/lastlog on x86_64

Manuel BERTRAND

manuel.bertrand at lif.univ-mrs.fr
Tue Sep 6 14:20:50 UTC 2005


Hi list,
this problem is already known and I'm sorry to bother if an acceptable 
workaround was already debated on the list.
I was getting trouble with a 'grep something /var/log*' which caused the 
"Memory exhausted" message. With some deeper search I found the lastlog 
file in /var/log/ to be 1.2T sized.  This seems to come from the 
nfsnobody's uid to be 4294967294 on x86_64 system (and -1 on i386) and 
the pre-allocation space for every uid (so from 0 to 
...4294967294...hum..) from lastlog.
Since I do not use NFS at all, can I just erase the nfsnobody from 
/etc/passwd and start with a blank lastlog file (this looks like a great 
way to nuke my system)? Or do I need to explicitly exclude this file 
from all my search? How do you -x86_64 users- deal with this? It seems 
the mainstream people don't see this as an issue.

the system:
2.6.9-11.ELsmp #1 SMP Fri May 20 18:25:30 EDT 2005 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 
GNU/Linux
CentOS 4

Thanks,
Manuel






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