"Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access"

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"Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access"

As you can see from the past of Terminal messages below, I am getting this message every minute on the minute. What does this mean and should I be concerned about it?

Thanks in advance.

7/15/08 2:03:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[13894]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:04:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[13923]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:05:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[13950]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:06:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[13977]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:07:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14005]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:08:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14038]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:09:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14067]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:10:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14094]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:11:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14121]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:12:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14148]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:13:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14176]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:14:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14203]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:15:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14230]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:16:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14258]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:17:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14285]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:18:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14312]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:19:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14339]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:20:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14370]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:21:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14397]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access
7/15/08 2:22:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10bca0.cron[14425]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access

G4 MDD

Posted on Jul 15, 2008 12:24 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Raff_Mac

Level 1

5 points

Jul 16, 2008 6:26 AM in response to Jim Rhody

This is a troyan! See that page to verify and remove it!

http://www.ehow.com/how2128387remove-osxrspluga-trojan-horse-mac.html

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Answer 2

Aug 6, 2008 6:12 AM in response to Raff_Mac

Not necessarily a trojan. I am getting this error on an OSX Server (v10.5.4) and none of the other symptoms of this trojan are present (certain files in the Library/internet plug-ins folder and odd DNS entries).

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Answer 3

llee

Level 1

113 points

Aug 7, 2008 1:33 PM in response to Jim Rhody

I found a crontab on 10.5.4 server (/private/var/at/tabs/_mailman) that was causing this error to appear every 5 minutes. This is how I found it:

sudo find /private/var -exec grep -q "0,5,10,15" '{}' \; -print

If it's running every minute, you might want to try searching for "* * * * *". If you don't find it in /private/var, then you could try something like

sudo find -x / -exec grep -q "* * * * *" '{}' \; -print

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Answer 4

Aug 10, 2008 10:18 AM in response to Jim Rhody

The msg about "special port 9" is itself apparently a bug.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.mac.misc/msg/9710242ea104731c?dmode=sour ce

What you can tell from getting the msg is that a scheduled job did kick off at that time.

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Answer 5

llee

Level 1

113 points

Aug 13, 2008 8:29 AM in response to Eric Blair

I consider it a bug, but whether it is or isn't, I was just trying to offer some advice about how to find details about the cron job so it can either be removed or both be removed and replaced with an equivalent launchd agent.

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Answer 6

Aug 15, 2008 6:07 AM in response to llee

So, my MacBook Pro hadn't been sleeping for the past month and I had no idea why. Recently though I noticed an icon in the dock show up for a flash and then disappear, but show enough to move my other icons. Anyway, I looked in console and I see the same "Could not setup ...". I did the search you suggested... but that's about the extent of my knowledge with this kind of thing... haha.

The first item was /private/var/at/tabs/root which I will assume is a crontab, but I wouldn't know. There were quite a few other results. Where should/can I go from here? Thanks!

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Answer 7

llee

Level 1

113 points

Aug 15, 2008 7:05 AM in response to Josh Redel

Not all the results of that find command will be pertinent. If you aren't sure about some of them, ask. I would download Cronnix and run it. In Cronnix, press command-O and type in root, then see if anything there can be removed. Delete the task or just take the checkmark out of the box at the left of the task, then save. Then, still in Cronnix, I would try to open the system user and do the same.
If you don't see any jobs in the list for root and system, I would just try moving the file out of the folder or editing it with TextWrangler, which should let you overwrite. That's a bit trickier, you're probably better off moving it and restarting. You can always put it back if something worse than no sleep happens.

If you need to replace the cron jobs with launchd jobs, I would try using Lingon.

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Answer 8

Aug 16, 2008 4:43 PM in response to Jim Rhody

Mailman -- I got rid of this message by editing /usr/lib/cron/tabs/_mailman and commenting out the following line:

#0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * /usr/bin/python -S /usr/share/mailman/cron/gate_news

It appears from the comments that this is a news-mail gateway. I don't care about doing such a thing, so I'm hoping it doesn't break anything else. But I'm going to spend some quality time with the Mailman docs to see if there is some other way I can turn off the news gateway, and then see if that does the job, which seems kindler and gentler than editing a crontab.

If this fixes it for you, please give me a "fixed" point!

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Answer 9

Aug 19, 2008 8:37 PM in response to Jim Rhody

I've been trying to set up a crontab job, and I get the same error message whenever my script runs. Basically, the script runs fine, except it can't run commands like ifconfig. So I think the problem has something to do with security settings? It won't allow a crontab to run certain commands?

It would be nice if I could figure this out, because I'm trying to set up a little security program for my new laptop.

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Answer 10

Aug 19, 2008 9:03 PM in response to quantamos

If you echo $PATH in the cron script, you'll see /sbin isn't in the PATH.

This is the default: PATH='/usr/bin:/bin'

Add this to the script:

PATH="$PATH:/sbin"
export PATH

If that's not your problem, show us the error msg.

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Answer 11

llee

Level 1

113 points

Aug 20, 2008 6:24 AM in response to Eric Blair

The folder "sbin" most certainly is in the path because I have already added it. The command "export $PATH" yields:

"/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"

The error always includes "Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access".

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Answer 12

Aug 20, 2008 9:58 AM in response to llee

lee wrote: "The command "export $PATH" yields:"

That command would yield a syntax error.

Place this in your script: echo "PATH='$PATH'"

Are you getting an actual error on your script besides the erroneous "special port" msg?

This is the second time I am asking you for the error msg that your script itself is producing.

Perhaps make the shebang line: #!/bin/sh -x
and show the output here.

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Answer 13

llee

Level 1

113 points

Aug 20, 2008 11:43 AM in response to Eric Blair

lee wrote: "The command "export $PATH" yields:"

That command would yield a syntax error.

Thanks.

Of course I meant to type "echo $PATH".

Place this in your script: echo "PATH='$PATH'"

Are you getting an actual error on your script besides the erroneous "special port" msg?

I did create one script that results in an execution error, but only when run by the cron scheduler, not when run using command-option-r in Cronnix, in which case there is no "special port" log entry, either. For all other scripts, there are no execution errors, only the cron error in the log (an example appears later in this reply).

This is the second time I am asking you for the error msg that your script itself is producing.

As I just stated, I only have one script that produces execution errors. I have several cron jobs that run successfully except for the "special port" log entry. I see the following log entry (with varying time and date values, of course) whenever a scheduled cron job is executed:

"8/20/08 - Aug 20 - 1:02:00 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x112c90.cron[2589]) Could not setup Mach task special port 9: (os/kern) no access"

Here is the script that gives me execution errors as well as the "special port" log error:

PATH="$PATH:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin";export PATH;echo "PATH=$PATH";osascript "/Users/me/Library/Scripts/backup/backupscript.scpt"

The "special port" log error is the log entry I included above. The execution results are:

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
/Users/me/Library/Scripts/backup/backupscript.scpt: execution error: An error of type -6600 has occurred. (-6600)

Again this is the only script that results in an execution error. Actually it's a separate problem that appears to result from using cron to trigger the osascript execution of an Applescript that mounts a network volume. All other cron jobs that use osascript to exec Applescripts work fine, with the exception of the "special port" log entry. The only ones that appear to have the -6600 execution errors are ones in which the Applescript attempts to mount a network volume.

Also, the failure of the script didn't happen under earlier versions of Leopard. I don't know which update broke it, however, just that it no longer works in 10.5.4.

Perhaps make the shebang line: #!/bin/sh -x
and show the output here.

Would that be appended to the beginning of the cron command?

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Answer 14

Aug 20, 2008 12:32 PM in response to Eric Blair

Ah, the problem was the path. Thanks! I should have anticipated the possibility that a perl shell has a different path than a terminal window.

However, I would have expected a more informative error, e.g. the typical "Command not found."

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Answer 15

llee

Level 1

113 points

Aug 20, 2008 12:55 PM in response to quantamos

Haven't I at least demonstrated in the posting I submitted prior to this one that adding the path for "/sbin" did not result in fixing the unwanted "special port 9" log entry?

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