[TriLUG] sshd: select: bad file number

jbrigman at nc.rr.com jbrigman at nc.rr.com
Tue Jan 15 08:10:28 EST 2008


Can anyone shed some light on the meaning and origin of this error message? I've seen it in Solaris when sending an incorrect command down an ssh connection. The result gets reported back via STDERR by the local ssh client when one sends an incorrect command down the pipe (like "helg" instead of "help") via script, and some buffer along the way seems to fill up with command results. The problem it creates for me is twofold:

1) It comes back to me in a manner that I can't predict, causing problems if I try to parse STDERR,
2) It "looks" like an error on the remote machine, but it's not. I can reproduce it on only one solaris system in the house.

 I understand the reporting program is "sshd", but I don't understand what facility "select" is. "bad file number" seems like it ought to be the magic number but I can't see what that's got to do with sending a command down the pipe.

'net searches have turned up two differing opinions on the origin of this message:

1) an unspecified solaris patch to ssh1, or
2) overrunning the value of ulimit, which defaults to 256.

My "sunslop" account has expired, so I can't search there. So much for solaris bug fixes being free, if you can't find the patch number. 

Experienced feedback welcomed, all else to /dev/null. 

JKB



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