Summary

Problem creating process with itadmin

Crash in call to IT_get_group_name_impl

Character limit on user group information

Environment

Orbix 6.3.x, supported Unix platforms

Question/Problem Description

Under certain circumstances, "itadmin process create" calls fail due to memory issues, when obtaining a user's group information. This article describes the cause of this problem and how to resolve it.

Error Message

The stack trace for the crashing thread will contain a call to "IT_get_group_name_impl".

Cause

On Unix platforms, when registering a new process (for example, using "itadmin process create"), Orbix obtains some information on the process’ user, including information on the user’s group.

As part of this, Orbix allocates a buffer of 1024 characters to store various fields in the group structure (For example, the group name, group password and group members).

Should those various fields in the group structure contain more than 1024 characters, the itadmin command will fail.

Workaround

This issue is avoided, if the group's information requires less than 1024 characters.

To determine how many characters are in a group structure’s fields, please check that groups’ entry in the "/etc/group" file.