innwatch having trouble with both LOCK and Integer Expression Expected errors

[Fran Fabrizio]

Just setting up my first INN server (inn 2.4.1, ./configure --with-perl, 
GnuGP installed), although I did base it off of the config of an 
existing server that's been running fine.  I followed the INSTALL doc 
and the server was able to start up successfully, I can connect my 
newsreader to it, and see/subscribe to the list of newsgroups.  However, 
about 5 minutes or so after startup, I started getting these messages on 
my console:

cat: /usr/local/news/run/LOCK.innwatch: No such file or directory

and they would repeat every so often.  On a hunch, I ran 'touch 
/usr/local/news/run/LOCK.innwatch' as the user 'news' on the server, and 
those messages went away, to be replaced by:

-sh-2.05b$ ctlinnd: No such site
/usr/local/news/bin/innwatch: line 239: [: : integer expression expected
/usr/local/news/bin/innwatch: line 286: [: : integer expression expected

The 'No Such Site' part of the error led me to believe that I had a bad 
peer, so I ping'ed each of them successfully to verify that they are 
still out there.  I then Googled for the 'integer expression expected' 
error, which located one mailing list post that indicated I might try 
editing innwatch.ctl to change the $7 into $4 - those lines were 
commented out but I decided to try enabling them and editing them to 
change the $7 to $4.  That seemed to have no effect.

I can only wonder if the two errors are related - perhaps the LOCK file 
is supposed to be populated with a pid, and that pid is expected in the 
innwatch lines that are throwing the integer expression expected errors? 
  Just blind guesses at this point - the root problem still may be that 
the LOCK file wasn't/isn't working properly, causing all of the other 
symptoms.

Interestingly, none of the news.crit/news.err/news.notice logs show 
anything wrong (full output below).  The only thing that might be 
strange is that the startup log output does not acknowledge the three 
peers I have configured in newsfeeds - should I be seeing something to 
that effect in the startup logs?  You can see in the logs where my 
newsreader is connecting and looking for new messages, but there's zero 
activity in the log to indicate that the server is attempting to get 
messages from its peers.  I'm really not sure where to go from here, any 
ideas?  It seems like it's all running peachy except it's oblivious to 
its peers and that it should be going out and getting messages to 
populate the database.

Log output:

Mar  8 11:46:38 crier innd: SERVER descriptors 1024
Mar  8 11:46:38 crier innd: SERVER outgoing 1011
Mar  8 11:46:38 crier innd: SERVER ccsetup control:13
Mar  8 11:46:38 crier innd: SERVER lcsetup localconn:15
Mar  8 11:46:38 crier innd: SERVER rcsetup remconn:3
Mar  8 11:46:39 crier innd: controlchan! spawned controlchan!:19:proc:6914
Mar  8 11:46:39 crier innfeed[6916]: ME starting innfeed 2.4.1 at Mon 
Mar  8 11:46:39 2004
Mar  8 11:46:39 crier innfeed[6916]: loading 
/usr/local/news/etc/innfeed.conf
Mar  8 11:46:39 crier innd: innfeed! spawned innfeed!:20:proc:6916
Mar  8 11:46:39 crier innd: SERVER perl filtering enabled
Mar  8 11:46:39 crier innd: SERVER starting
Mar  8 11:46:39 crier controlchan[6914]: starting


Mar  8 11:48:14 crier nnrpd[6372]: mymachine.cis.uab.edu timeout
Mar  8 11:48:14 crier nnrpd[6372]: mymachine.cis.uab.edu group 
comp.lang.perl.misc
0
Mar  8 11:48:14 crier nnrpd[6372]: mymachine.cis.uab.edu times user 
0.010 system 0.010 idle 0.000 elapsed 600.200
Mar  8 11:48:14 crier nnrpd[6372]: mymachine.cis.uab.edu time 600200 
idle 600178(3) nntpwrite 0(6)

Thanks,
Fran

-- 

Fran Fabrizio
Senior Systems Analyst
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
University of Alabama - Birmingham
fran at cis.uab.edu
(205) 934-0653