Re: Y2K

[Philippe Moutarlier <philippe kscable com>]

hUnTeR <hunter userfriendly net> writes:

> Well here is a "y2k" brain teaser. I run a number of redhat-6.1 servers
> here, and when i ssh'd into them this morning at about 4:30am i saw this
> unusual message:
> 
> ~/ eclipse
> hunter's password: 
> Last login: Wed Dec 31 1969 19:00:00 -0500
> No mail.
>
 
> I thought that was rather strange, since i hadnt been on that particular
> box at all that day, and did a last just to check and saw:
> 

Are you really looking at the date when you say that ????

1969, hum, this is an OLD BOX you have got there !!!



> ~/temp/ last -15
> hunter   ttyp1        quark.userfriend Sat Jan  1 04:42   still loggedin 
> 
> wtmp begins Sat Jan  1 04:42:50 2000
> 
> So, went to box number 2 and saw the EXACT sane behavior on it, same
> date and time for the last login, and went to a third box, and saw the
> exact same thing. So, realizing that these are all totally different
> boxes but all running redhat-6.1 i was curious as to why i was seeing
> this. Has anyone got a reasonable explanation as to why i am seeing
> this? And what the long term consequences, if any, might be? I am
> awaiting tripwire's report to verify what i already know, but this
> doesnt look like an intruder,
> 

I can advance one idea : the begining of time for Unix is specifically on 
January 1 1970 
means that if you roll over and present a number like -1 to Unix it is going to think it is on ... December 31 1969 !

Look like a perfect Y2K bug right there. 

Philippe

> Regards and thanks in advance.
> -- 
> Michael B. Weiner
> Systems Administrator/Partner
> The UserFriendly Network (UFN)
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