intermittent stderr

[John Dunlap]

The command "ssh ls -l /doesnotexist" gives various responses:

Running from a 200 MHz PentiumPro with dsa key added to ssh-agent:

Mistakes worst to fast machine:
To a faster 600 MHz dual processor i686 600 MHz machine:
ls: /doesnotexist: No such file or directory  -- correct
nothing at all                                -- wrong
ls: select: Bad file descriptor               -- wrong

No mistakes to slower machine.
To a slower 166 MHz i586 600 MHz machine:
ls: /doesnotexist: No such file or directory  -- correct all the time

All machines run compiled OpenSSH-2.5.1p1 on RHL 6.2 with all
patches, kernel 2.2.16-3.  Set up on all machines with
ssh and sshd defaulting to ssh2 protocol.

My test script:

#!/bin/sh
while [ 1 ]
do
    date
    ssh tesla ls -l /doesnotexist
done

Responses from fast machine are not consistent:

Thu Feb 22 14:15:35 PST 2001
ls: /doesnotexist: No such file or directory
Thu Feb 22 14:15:37 PST 2001
Thu Feb 22 14:15:39 PST 2001
ls: /doesnotexist: No such file or directory
Thu Feb 22 14:15:41 PST 2001
Thu Feb 22 14:15:43 PST 2001
ls: /doesnotexist: No such file or directory
Thu Feb 22 14:15:45 PST 2001
ls: select: Bad file descriptor
Thu Feb 22 14:15:47 PST 2001
Thu Feb 22 14:15:49 PST 2001
ls: /doesnotexist: No such file or directory
Thu Feb 22 14:15:51 PST 2001
ls: /doesnotexist: No such file or directory
Thu Feb 22 14:15:54 PST 2001
ls: /doesnotexist: No such file or directory
Thu Feb 22 14:15:56 PST 2001
select: Bad file descriptor
Thu Feb 22 14:15:58 PST 2001

-- 
John Dunlap                           University of Washington
Senior Electrical Engineer            Applied Physics Laboratory
dunlap at apl.washington.edu             1013 NE 40th Street
206-543-7207, 543-1300, FAX 543-6785  Seattle, WA   98105-6698