Re: tail -f to a dir

[spider () SECLAB COM (spider () SECLAB COM)]

Hello,
i tried on Linux (Slackware 7) with textutils 1.22 but it doesn't happen:

spider@chatsubo:~$ tail --version
tail (GNU textutils) 1.22
spider@chatsubo:~$ tail -f /home/spider
tail: /home/spider: Is a directory
spider@chatsubo:~$ su
Password:
root@chatsubo:/home/spider# tail -f /home/spider
tail: /home/spider: Is a directory
root@chatsubo:/home/spider#

On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Dino Amato wrote:

> Hi-
> I do not remember this being mentioned, but if it has sorry.
> I was playing today and I did a "tail -f /home/mydir" on RH 6.2
> and I get:
>
> tail: /home/mydir: Is a directory
> tail: tail.c:718: recheck: Assertion `valid_file_spec (f)' failed.
> Abort (core dumped)
>
> Sometimes I get a core, sometimes not. Same result as root, but always creates a core as root though.
>
> So I tried this on my SGI running IRIX 6.55 and it went back to a prompt like nothing happened.
> Then I tried it on Solaris 2.6 and it actually spit the contents of the dir. in binary form, but when it was done - 
> it went back to a prompt.
>
> Now when I do a "strings" on the core I get the info for who wrote tail (Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Ian Lance 
> Taylor, and Jim Meyering 2.0a) and other tail related things, then at end I see my environment.
>
> Any insight other than don't tail a directory?
>
>
> (There was no  reason why I tail -f a dir. I was playing)
> ----------------------------------------
> Dino Amato
> ----------------------------------------

--
Lorenzo Lazzeri
Intesis SpA - SECURITY LAB              Phone: +39-055-3024680
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