[c-nsp] 6500 nvram contents changing

[john heasley]

Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 10:40:20AM -0400, Jared Mauch:
> This typically happens if someone is viewing the startup-config (eg: show conf) as it is locked.

afaict, reading nor writing locks the nvram fsys in such a way that
dir /all nvram:, the command rancid uses, fails.  it seems to wait
as you'd expect the locking to work, though not in a fifo manner.
at least, i can't reproduce this on 12.2.18SXF16.

if it did fail, i'd expect that it the cli would return an error,
which rancid may not recognize.  in cases where the fsys is locked,
like for one being squeezed, the cli normally produces errors like

Open device \S+ failed
Error opening \S+:

which rancid does recognize.

it may be that write memory removes all the nvram files, then writes
the new ones and you're just lucky.  other ideas?

> - Jared
> 
> On Mar 19, 2010, at 7:58 AM, Ben Cooper wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > We use rancid to retrieve configs from our cisco kit, recently one of
> > our 6500s (s72033_rp-ADVENTERPRISEK9_WAN-M Version 12.2(33)SXH3) has
> > started reporting nvram content changes sporadically throughout the day, eg:
> > 
> >>  !Flash: nvram: Directory of nvram:/
> >>  !Flash: nvram:  1918  -rw-       26788                    <no date>  startup-config
> >>  !Flash: nvram:  1919  ----          24                    <no date>  private-config
> >>  !Flash: nvram:  1920  -rw-       26788                    <no date>  underlying-config
> >> - !Flash: nvram:     1  ----           4                    <no date>  rf_cold_starts
> >> - !Flash: nvram:     2  ----          48                    <no date>  persistent-data
> >> - !Flash: nvram:     3  -rw-        4887                    <no date>  ifIndex-table
> >>  !Flash: nvram: 1964024 bytes total (1929992 bytes free)
> > 
> >>  !Flash: nvram: Directory of nvram:/
> >> - !Flash: nvram: No files in directory
> >> + !Flash: nvram:  1918  -rw-       26788                    <no date>  startup-config
> >> + !Flash: nvram:  1919  ----          24                    <no date>  private-config
> >> + !Flash: nvram:  1920  -rw-       26788                    <no date>  underlying-config
> >> + !Flash: nvram:     1  ----           4                    <no date>  rf_cold_starts
> >> + !Flash: nvram:     2  ----          48                    <no date>  persistent-data
> >> + !Flash: nvram:     3  -rw-        4887                    <no date>  ifIndex-table
> >>  !Flash: nvram: 1964024 bytes total (1929992 bytes free)
> > 
> > Has anyone experienced this behaviour before?
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Ben
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> 
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