Re: Can't Locate binfmt... something to worry about?

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

x.y.f@home.com wrote:
>On Sat, Feb 24, 2001 at 06:02:37PM +0100, Jonathan Gift wrote:
>> I've been getting the msg every two or three days now and know that it's
>> origin is a program accessing an empty file. The questions are:
>> 
>> 1. Does this happen on most systems?
>> 2. Is it something particular to this system, and if so, how track down
>> what is causing it?
>> 
>> I've had xlogmaster on daemon log open almost continuously but have
>> missed catching it in the act...
>> 
>> Any ideas or suggestions appreciated.
>
>From - /usr/src/linux/Documentation/binfmt_misc.txt

binfmt_misc isn't his problem, it's trying to execute random other files
for some reason, at which point the kernel constructs a module name
based on the first two bytes of the file and tries to modprobe it; it
only goes near binfmt_misc if that module has specifically registered
itself as knowing about the binary format in question. I haven't worked
out exactly what's causing it for him yet.

>"Kernel Support for miscellaneous (your favourite) Binary Formats v1.1"
>
>"You can enable/disable binfmt_misc or one binary type by echoing 0 (to
>disable) or 1 (to enable) to /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/status or
>/proc/.../the_name. Catting the file tells you the current status of
>binfmt_misc/the entry.
>
>You can remove one entry or all entries by echoing -1 to
>/proc/.../the_name or /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/status."

<plug> Try the binfmt-support package in unstable, which should make
things a little easier to manage. </plug> :)

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