Dustin J. Mitchell wrote:

On Fri, May 25, 2007 at 05:47:33PM -0400, Jon LaBadie wrote:

ISTR, from your original message, that the "Strange" message said
unable to create temporary directory under, /tmp, /var/tmp, and /.
I don't recall it saying anything about /tmp/amanda.  I don't
understand why you are fixed on that particular directory.

That was confusing me too :)

To clarify, ufsdump is prbably trying to create temporary files on its
own (who knows why, but lots of programs do it!).  Because of some
permissions problem, it is unable to create those files.  Likely causes:
 - bad permissions on /tmp, /var/tmp, and /
 - ufsdump not running as the correct user
 - selinux or other kernel-based security mechanisms
As Jon said, the problem is on the Amanda client, not on the server.

Agreed. It's a problem on the client.

I have one Solaris9 client with the same issues here:

? Unable to create temporary directory in any of the directories listed below:
?       /tmp/
?       /var/tmp/
?       /

when using ufsdump. When switching this client (one DLE only) from ufsdump
to gtar, this message disappears.

The strange thing about this client is, even if amstatus tells me it's a
level 1, it does a level 0 (~50GB every day). Regardless if using ufsdump
or gtar. And yes, this box is synced using ntp, living in the correct
century :o)

ufsdump is suid root, /tmp, /var/tmp and / have the correct permissions.

A rootkit, maybe ?

 Peter