Strange line in the root crontab: why?

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2 total messages Started by Flint Pellett Fri, 20 Jul 1990 20:02

#185

Author: Flint Pellett
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 1990 20:02

17 lines
1063 bytes

I found this line in the root crontab on our 3B2/600, which is now
running R3.2.2.  This smells a lot like a kludge fix/workaround to
some sort of bug, but I've never heard of it before: it doesn't
look like it can possibly be doing anything useful.

0 0 * * * dd if=/dev/mem of=/dev/null 2>/dev/null

My questions are:
1. Why is it there?
2. Does it still need to be there?  (Or is it there to fix a
   problem in a previous release which is now fixed right and
   doesn't need this?)
-- 
Flint Pellett, Global Information Systems Technology, Inc.
1800 Woodfield Drive, Savoy, IL  61874     (217) 352-1165
uunet!gistdev!flint or flint@gistdev.gist.com

Re: Strange line in the root crontab: why?

#192

Author: Mark Brukhartz
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 1990 17:47

16 lines
1124 bytes

In article <932@gistdev.gist.com> flint@gistdev.gist.com (Flint Pellett) writes:
>I found this line in the root crontab on our 3B2/600, which is now
>running R3.2.2.  [ ... ]
>
>0 0 * * * dd if=/dev/mem of=/dev/null 2>/dev/null

It corrects single-bit memory errors before they grow into uncorrectable
double-bit errors. The command, of course, reads all of physical memory.
The memory hardware then detects any single- or double-bit errors and
corrects the single-bit errors.

	Mark Brukhartz
	INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation
	Services and Technologies
	mdb@i88.isc.com
	...!{amdahl, ico, ima, ism780c, masscomp, nucsrl, sun}!laidbak!mdb

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