Multiple rpc.nisd Parent Processes

Symptoms:

Various Database and transaction log corruption error messages containing the terms:

• Log corrupted

• Log entry corrupt

• Corrupt database

• Database corrupted

Possible Causes:

You have multiple independent rpc.nisd daemons running. In normal operation, rpc.nisd can spawn other child rpc.nisd daemons. This causes no problem. However, if two parentrpc.nisd daemons are running at the same time on the same machine, they will overwrite each other's data and corrupt logs and databases. (Normally, this could only occur if someone started running rpc.nisd by hand.)

Diagnosis:

Run ps -e | grep rpc.nisd. Make sure that you have no more than one parent rpc.nisd process.

Solution:

If you have more than one “parent” rpc.nisd entry, you must kill all but one of them. Use svcadm disable to stop the unwanted services, then run the ps command again to make sure the unwanted daemons have died.

If an NIS+ database is corrupt, you will also have to restore it from your most recent backup that contains an uncorrupted version of the database. You can then use the logs to update changes made to your namespace since the backup was recorded. However, if your logs are also corrupted, you will have to recreate by hand any namespace modifications made since the backup was taken.