Score:3

Weird file in /tmp

vn flag

I ran on a weird file in the /tmp of my Ubuntu 20.04 box:

-rw------- 1 root     root       26 Okt 10 16:44 yAUhIcBsOý

and it contains

/var/ffffff/users/superman

Neither the user superman nor the dir in /var exists.

There is a second file with same rights, different name and same content in /tmp 3 days earlier.

And I couldn't find s.th. similar in a search.

Any idea?

uz flag
Jos
Hmm...interesting. I found this: http://osgeeks.net/shell.php?f=/var/c19/.cpan/build///Encode-3.11-0/t/Unicode_trailing_nul.t (text file, harmless AFAICT)
uz flag
Jos
I believe the program tests the Perl installation on your system for a specific bug. An invalid encoded string is decoded and the result is written to a temporary file. When read back, if it's equal to the first string, the test reports `UTF-16 decodes with trailing NUL`. Question is: who did that testing, and when? With root privileges, no less.
Umbertones avatar
vn flag
Thanks for pointing on perl. When updating the software on this box I run a script that has the following line in it: sudo cpan-outdated -p | sudo cpan The timestamp of the weird file may fit to running this update script.
Umbertones avatar
vn flag
I can confirm that running the ```sudo cpan``` commands creates the file in //tmp, but inly when a distribution is updated by the program.
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