Well, those "file not found" errors are from processes that existed when
the readdir happened on the /proc file system, but exitted before the
subdirectories could be searched!  /proc is very volatile, since it
represents the state of the running kernel and its current set of
processes.

Even though I put that original script together, the better way to find
the pppd process is to look in /var/run for a file named pppd.ttyxx - if
this file exists, its contents are a printable representation of the
pppd's process id.

BTW, lots of system utilities use this mechanism (sendmail comes to mind
immediately)

On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, Jason S. wrote:

> 
> After I heard about popclient on the mailing-list, I dl'd and installed it.
> 
> It worked great, but my implementation of it has unleashed a minor annoyance
> on my system.  I put together a script:
> 
> (borrowing the 'p=...' line from Paul Goyette's ppp-up) to check if pppd is
> running, and if so, fetch my mail.
> 
> It works fine.  But when cron runs it, I get back an annoying bunch of error
> messages that various /proc/[pid]/status files don't exist. (This does not
> happen when I invoke the script manually).  I added the wildcard (statu* instead
> of status) to the grep in an attempt to stop this.  Didn't work.  So I added the
> sync (hey, it was worth a try).  Still didn't work.
> 
> The script does what I want it to, but I am really annoyed by the error messages
> and the email I get from cron repeating them.
> 
> Any suggestion?
> 
> (oops - suggestions)
> 
> J.
> 
> (If this is ugly, blame it on Berkeley mail...)
> 

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