HELP! what does this mean: "svc: bad direction 256, dropping request" - UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

fishsponge · #1 11-14-2007

For a few weeks now, on several of our machines, i've been seeing this in /var/log/messages and dmesg:

Code:

Nov 14 16:37:48 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:37:48 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:38:02 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:38:02 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:38:18 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:38:18 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:38:32 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:38:32 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:38:48 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:38:48 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:39:02 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:39:02 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:39:18 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:39:18 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:39:32 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:39:32 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:39:48 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:39:48 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:40:02 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:40:02 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request
Nov 14 16:40:18 stg2 kernel: svc: bad direction 256, dropping request
Nov 14 16:40:18 stg2 kernel: svc: short len 4, dropping request

does anyone have any idea what is causing it?

we have been seeing strange alerts on some of our systems, but not enough to track down whether it's related or not.

Also, each pair of lines appears to be printed at 02, 18, 32 and 48 seconds past each minute, which is very regular, but not regular within each minute (i.e. it's not quite every 16 seconds - it's a different, but regular, gap each time).

So anyway, if anyone can help, i'd greatly appreciate it! This has been bugging me for weeks now

thanks in advance, people!

porter · #2 11-14-2007

You could help by telling us what operating system this refers to.

blowtorch · #3 11-14-2007

A quick google search provided this and this (among others). They are quite different, the first one refers to NFS, while the second one has DNS and NIS coming into the picture. Another one that says that some server with its DNS domain in its /etc/defaultdomain file instead of the NIS domain caused this.

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