files in /etc/xinetd.d become 0 byte size

[Simon Matter <simon.matter@ch.sauter-bc.com>]

Hi all,

I'm setting up a new server, basically it's RedHat 7.2 XFS with all
updates from RedHat applied. Kernel is 2.4.9-31SGI_XFS_1.0.2. I have two
IDE disks with software RAID1 partitions for /, /boot, /home. Nothing
special.

The problem I have is that after some installation and configuration
work, some xinetd config files in /etc/xinetd.d became 0 byte size. IIRC
I saw the same thing some time ago with another machine but I really
don't understand what's going on. BTW, I didn't have a crash or unclean
shutdown.

[root@gw-linux-dev xinetd.d]# ll /etc/xinetd.d
total 44
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          295 Mar 18 15:53 chargen
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          315 Mar 18 15:53 chargen-udp
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          295 Mar 18 15:53 daytime
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          315 Mar 18 15:53 daytime-udp
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          287 Mar 18 15:53 echo
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          306 Mar 18 15:53 echo-udp
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          317 Mar 18 15:53 finger
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          491 Mar 18 15:53 jftpgw-inet
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          257 Mar 18 15:53 ntalk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 rexec
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 rlogin
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 rsh
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 rsync
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 talk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 telnet
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 time
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 time-udp
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Mar 18 15:53 wu-ftpd

I have then restored the empty files from another installation.
Everything seemed okay. I have then rebooted and now it's getting more
interesting.

[root@gw-linux-dev xinetd.d]# ll
total 36
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          295 Mar 18 15:59 chargen
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          315 Mar 18 15:59 chargen-udp
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          295 Mar 18 15:59 daytime
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          315 Mar 18 15:59 daytime-udp
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          287 Mar 18 15:59 echo
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          306 Mar 18 15:59 echo-udp
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          317 Mar 18 15:59 finger
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          491 Mar 18 15:59 jftpgw-inet
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          257 Mar 18 15:59 ntalk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          359 Mar 18 15:59 rexec
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          376 Mar 18 15:59 rlogin
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          428 Mar 18 15:59 rsh
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          317 Mar 18 15:59 rsync
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          245 Mar 18 15:59 talk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          303 Mar 18 15:59 telnet
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          319 Mar 18 15:59 time
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          315 Mar 18 15:59 time-udp
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          361 Mar 18 15:59 wu-ftpd

It looks okay, but then I tried this:
[root@gw-linux-dev xinetd.d]# cat rsh
[root@gw-linux-dev xinetd.d]#

Further investigation shows that the same files that were missing before
are now filled with zero. After restarting xinetd, I guess they will be
0 bytes in size.

I have searched RedHat bugzilla but didn't find anything useful.
What comes to mind is the problem with zero filled bytes after a crash
but I didnt' have any crash or unclean shutdowns. It seems to be
something similar anyway.

Is it possible that xinetd performs an operation on the files which
leaves them not cleanly flushed to disk when shutting down?

Thanks for any help!

-Simon