Re: /var/log/messages questions

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

mpm@murrain.net wrote:
>2 strange (to me) messages appear in my /var/log/messages file. Any ideas on 
>these?
>
>First, simply:
>
>Nov 28 10:41:52 blackbear -- MARK --
>Nov 28 11:01:52 blackbear -- MARK --
>Nov 28 11:21:52 blackbear -- MARK --
>Nov 28 11:41:52 blackbear -- MARK --
>Nov 28 12:01:52 blackbear -- MARK --
>Nov 28 12:21:52 blackbear -- MARK --          
>
>
>Every 20 minutes. No, I don't have any cron or at jobs going at this interval.

The sysklogd(8) man page has this to say:

       -m interval
              The syslogd logs a mark timestamp  regularly.   The
              default interval between two -- MARK -- lines is 20
              minutes.  This can be  changed  with  this  option.
              Setting the interval to zero turns it off entirely.

>Second is more disturbing...
>
>Nov 22 06:26:53 blackbear kernel: Directory sread (sector 0x1b) failed
>Nov 22 06:26:53 blackbear kernel: attempt to access beyond end of device
>Nov 22 06:26:53 blackbear kernel: 02:00: rw=0, want=14, limit=4
>
>This happened a lot at one point. I can't tell what device it's talking about.

According to /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt, 02:00 (that is,
the device with major number 2 and minor number 0 - presumably a block
device) is /dev/fd0, your first floppy drive. Knowing floppies, you
*probably* don't need to be too concerned about this.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                     [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]