Can not create numerical directories

popowich · 01-04-2008, 12:45 PM

Hello,

I ran into an interesting problem yesterday that I as of yet have not been able to solve. I can not create numerical directories on my server anymore. It was a RHEL3 server. I had not made any changes to it. No patches or anything, it stopped working for no particular reason. I can not "mkdir 123", and I can not mkdir abc and then move it to 123. A mkdir abc123 works. This causes a significant for a server with a qmail queue, or software such as vBulletin and it'd addon products that use numerical directory names such as attachments/1/2/3. I did some googling and came up with a few other people who had this problem for example here and here . The problem exists on all file systems. The file systems are ext3. The problem is still there if I mount them ext2. The problem is still there if I recreate the ext3 journals via tunefs. The problem is still there if I fsck. The problem is still there if I reboot. My mkdir is unmodified, confirmed by rpm, and I don't have any aliases for mkdir. I had to get this working eventually so today I am upgrading to RHEL5. That worked for one person in the threads linked above,m at least long enough to be working and get migrated to a new server. Any thoughts? I'd love to hear a solution to this problem that does not involve reinstalling / upgrading the operating system.

-Raymond

popowich · 01-04-2008, 01:10 PM

The problem still exists after the upgrade to RHEL5.

Any ideas on what to check now?

-Raymond

popowich · 01-04-2008, 02:00 PM

Here are some examples now that the server is back up...

Quote:

{2:59pm popowich@holdems /tmp/numbers} ls -la
total 40
drwx------ 2 popowich users 4096 Jan 4 14:59 .
drwxrwxrwt 19 root root 32768 Jan 4 14:59 ..

{2:59pm popowich@holdems /tmp/numbers} mkdir 0
mkdir: cannot create directory `0': No such file or directory

{2:59pm popowich@holdems /tmp/numbers} mkdir 123
mkdir: cannot create directory `123': No such file or directory

{2:59pm popowich@holdems /tmp/numbers} mkdir abc123

{2:59pm popowich@holdems /tmp/numbers} mkdir abc

{2:59pm popowich@holdems /tmp/numbers} mv abc123 9
mv: cannot move `abc123' to `9': No such file or directory

-Raymond

jschiwal · 01-04-2008, 02:20 PM

Does your locale do something strange with numbers?

popowich · 01-04-2008, 02:24 PM

I don't believe so:

Quote:

{3:23pm popowich@holdems ~} locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_PAPER="C"
LC_NAME="C"
LC_ADDRESS="C"
LC_TELEPHONE="C"
LC_MEASUREMENT="C"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="C"
LC_ALL=C

jschiwal · 01-04-2008, 03:02 PM

The error you are seeing will often be displayed if there is a permissions or selinux problem. However you demonstrated creating a directory with a normal name.

I'm just curious. Enter:
set 123
echo $1

Also, as a regular user try
mkdir ~/123

Does that fail as well?

popowich · 01-04-2008, 03:09 PM

Correct, it is not a simple permissions issue.

Here is an example, as root, across multiple partitions:

Quote:

[root@holdems popowich]# cd /

[root@holdems /]# mkdir 0
mkdir: cannot create directory `0': No such file or directory

[root@holdems /]# cd /usr/local

[root@holdems local]# mkdir 123
mkdir: cannot create directory `123': No such file or directory

[root@holdems local]# cd /var/log

[root@holdems log]# mkdir 456
mkdir: cannot create directory `456': No such file or directory

[root@holdems log]# touch 678
touch: creating `678': No such file or directory

The following works as root:

Quote:

[root@holdems tmp]# set 123
[root@holdems tmp]# echo $1
123

But not as a non-root user:

Quote:

{4:08pm popowich@holdems ~} set 123
set: Variable name must begin with a letter.

And the relative path mkdir fails too:

Quote:

{4:08pm popowich@holdems ~} mkdir ~/123
mkdir: cannot create directory `/home/popowich/123': No such file or directory

I'm not sure if this is where you were trying to go, but this fails too:

Quote:

[root@holdems tmp]# set 123
[root@holdems tmp]# echo $1
123
[root@holdems tmp]# mkdir $1
mkdir: cannot create directory `123': No such file or directory

jschiwal · 01-04-2008, 03:34 PM

The set command will set the argument array:

Code:

set 123 ab 321
jschiwal@hpamd64:~> echo "$@"
123 ab 321

I did this as a normal user. I wanted to see if the argument showed up the same when you echoed it later.

I just noticed that you are doing something funky with PS1. Use the systems settings for PS1 and PS2 and see if that makes a difference.

As a normal user on SuSE my PS1 is
$(ppwd \l)\u@\h:\w>

On Fedora Core it is:
[\u@\h \W]\$

As root on SuSE it is:
hpamd64:~ # echo $PS1
\[\]\h:\w # \[\]

Also check if you have an alias for mkdir or if the mkdir program is a shell wrapper.

popowich · 01-04-2008, 04:00 PM

My /bin/mkdir is the binary, not aliased, and not a wrapper.

Quote:

[root@holdems tmp]# which mkdir
/bin/mkdir

If I su - root and eliminate any of my personal prompt preferences the problem still exists.

Quote:

{DING! popowich@holdems ~} su - root
Password:
[root@holdems ~]# cd /tmp
[root@holdems tmp]# mkdir 123456
mkdir: cannot create directory `123456': No such file or directory

jschiwal · 01-04-2008, 05:49 PM

What about your aliases?
Also, can you create a directory with a number name as a normal user in you home directory?

As far as I know, you should be able to run the set builtin command. Are you using the bash shell?
Try "type set" and "type mkdir".

popowich · 01-04-2008, 06:10 PM

Quote:

{7:07pm popowich@holdems ~} ls -la /home
drwx------ 7 popowich users 4096 Jan 4 19:02 popowich

{7:07pm popowich@holdems ~} pwd
/home/popowich

{7:07pm popowich@holdems ~} mkdir 1
mkdir: cannot create directory `1': No such file or directory

Also, I tried as bash, here are the results:

Quote:

{7:07pm popowich@holdems ~} /bin/bash

bash-3.1$ type set
set is a shell builtin

bash-3.1$ type mkdir
mkdir is /bin/mkdir

bash-3.1$ mkdir 22
mkdir: cannot create directory `22': No such file or directory

popowich · 01-12-2008, 05:56 PM

I'm done with migrating my sites to a new server.

I'm happy to try anything else, no matter how destructive it might be on the old server.

-Raymond

Nullivex · 01-17-2008, 04:01 AM

I have this error as well. Very tricky.

So far I have replaced all of my bin binaries switched kernels had server support personell from different website look into the issue and read serveral forum threads. This is a weird one. So far the only solution I have seen is to reload the OS of course I would love to take the cheaper route and figure this out and I have noticed a lot of people with this problem recently is this a bug with cent?

popowich · 01-17-2008, 06:24 AM

FWIW, "Upgrade the OS" didn't even work.

I'm all for experimenting with new things to try.

Any ideas?

-Raymond

chrism01 · 01-17-2008, 06:00 PM

According to these guys, almost definitely a rootkit: http://www.unix.com/unix-advanced-ex...tory-name.html

Edit: Might be a good idea to get this moved to the RedHat forum, in the hope that
1. somebody has the soln
2. somebody there has a PAID RHEL subscription and can ask RH; they should know the answer if anybody does...