I pressed the scroll lock key and 20 messages went to
the screen.

> May 27 09:41:03 myserver su: BAD SU xxx to root on /dev/ttyp1
> May 27 09:41:08 myserver su: xxx to root on /dev/ttyp1
> May 27 14:39:41 myserver su: xxx to root on /dev/ttyp1
> May 28 09:28:24 myserver su: xxx to root on /dev/ttyp1
> May 28 12:42:40 myserver su: xxx to root on /dev/ttyp1
> ```````````````
>
> NetBSD/i386 (myserver) (ttyE0)
>
> Login: ```````````````[2~[C*/E5
> ^[[7~Password:_

May 29 14:05:45 myserver su: xxx to root on /dev/ttyp1
May 30 08:23:57 myserver su: xxx to root on /dev/ttyp1
and 10 more lines of messages

1) Between may 28 12:42:40 and may 29 14:05:45 somebody
   press the scroll lock key (the explanation is in the
   last paragraph)
2) syslogd keeps working and writing to log files
3) Yesterday jun 6 16:03:00 the last message was from
   sendmail (SYSERR) and wrote to /var/log/mail/maillog
   (and is my lower message in the screen of console)
4) With this event, the buffer for write to /dev/console
   was full.
5) All messages from programs and daemons which writes
   to syslogd and this to log files were ignored.
6) Then I press the scroll lock key and the buffer of
   messages was displayed in screen (until jun 6 16:03:00)
7) The log files has an hole between jun 6 16:03:00 and now

Jun  6 16:03:00 myserver sendmail[26127]: g56KARg26070: SYSERR(root):
fill_fd: <ieca44@mydom.net
.mx>... end of deliver(smtp): fd 1 not open: Bad file descriptor
Jun  7 13:31:23 myserver sendmail[29081]: g57IVMg29081:
from=<current-users-owner-list11=sepc.edu.
mx@netbsd.org>, size=1422, class=-30, nrcpts=1,
msgid=<20020607202350.B133CA%03020740@xavhome.fr.
eu.org>, proto=SMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=mail.netbsd.org [155.53.1.253]
(this last line is a mail message of this moment... not yesterday)

8) syslogd is working now as usual.

It explains the *su* command can not end givigng me a shell as root
because syslogd is waiting for write the log message in console
and the su command seems sleeping forever.

The maid who keeps clean the offices, cleans also the keyboards
with a fabric and eventually press some keys. And the consecuence
is 9 or 10 days later. (when the buffer is full)

I am sorry for the inconvenience of my messages

Thanks to all who was interested in this problem


Heron Gallegos