Cannot create, nor delete a file with certain filenames on UFS under Solaris 10

solarisufs

We're having a problem where on (random) occasion a particular file cannot be created, nor deleted. The file does not exist, any attempt to write to it (even as root at the console) results in a "Permission Denied" message.

An automated process has sftp'd the files to this location like this:

under "/dirX/" file001 thru file999 have been transferred with the exception of file666. File 666 resulted resulted in a permission denied error.

  1. the file doesn't exist
  2. (as root) touch /dirX/file666 ->permission denied

we tried this:

mv /dirX /dirSomething
touch /dirSomething/file666 # OK!
mv /dirSomething /dirX #OK!
cat /dirX/file666 #OK!
rm /dirX/file666 #permission denied
mv /dirX /dirSomethingElse #permission denied.

Our support staff brought the system offline and ran fsck which did find and correct 1 error. This didn't solve the problem nor prevent it from happening again.

It's as if the file system hates that particular name and refuses to do anything with it.

What could cause such an issue?

Edit:
Abbreviated truss output:

pathconf("file666", 20)               = 1
acl("file666", GETACLCNT, 0, 0x00000000) = 4
stat64("file666", 0xFFBFEC90)         = 0
acl("file666", GETACL, 4, 0x00027928) = 4
lstat64("otherfile666", 0x00026630) Err#2 ENOENT
rename("file666", "otherfile666")           Err#13 EACCES
fstat64(2, 0xFFBFDF10)        = 0
mvwrite(2, " m v", 2)         = 2
: cannot rename write(2, " :   c a n n o t   r e n".., 16)      = 16
file666write(2, " f i l e 6 6 6".., 17)     = 17
 to write(2, "   t o  ", 4)           = 4
otherfile666write(2, " b k . t x t", 6)     = 6
: write(2, " :  ", 2)         = 2
Permission deniedwrite(2, " P e r m i s s i o n   d".., 17)     = 17

ls -hal output

FJSV>host{root}: ls -hal *
-rw-r--r--   1 a817768  nologin      34K Jun 26 14:56 file666

Best Answer

The Solaris ppriv command can be used to debug Permission Denied issues. Try this:

ppriv -e -D touch /dirX/file666
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