Problems with VI etc (reposting).

[cbas25 at vaxa.strath.ac.uk]

This is a re-posting of a message I sent yesterday because I forgot
to sign it or give a reply address.
I have several queries concerning funny things which happen on
one or both of two Personal Iris's which I run.
Funny thing number 1:-   This happens on both machines when I am using
the VI editor.  Every so often, when I end an 'Insert' or 'Append' command
the latest insert text repeats one or more times. When this happens 
it is not too much of a problem if only a few characters are involved 
(I just delete them).  But sometimes the extra characters run to several 
hundred, and sometimes the whole screen is filled with text.  
The system is seeing the extra characters as one long line, and in 
some cases a "line too long" message appears, and all I can do is 
try and save the edit and then restart it.  
I have been told that this is something to do with the 
inability of UNIX (C) to cope with interrupts; if that is so 
its a deficiency which is quite serious. What are the prospects
of it being fixed??
  
Funny thing number 2:-   One machine is connected to a network of 
machines on the campus via ethernet, and occasionally a series of 
entries appears in the SYSLOG file of the form:-

Mar 21 11:20:06 INTERCHEM inetd[2186]| getpwnam|  guest| No such user
Mar 21 11:20:06 INTERCHEM inetd[109]|  /usr/etc/tftpd: exit status 0x100

I suspect that this is evidence of someone trying to get access to the 
machine;  the user "guest" is not implemented on the machine, so no 
damage is being done, except that these two lines are repeated perhaps
hundreds of times and the SYSLOG file is unecessarily extended.  Our
network administrators have been unable to detect this activity, nor
have they been able to suggest a remedy.  The question is:- how can I
stop the SYSLOG file retaining all this garbage?  Incidentally, is it
possible to prevent the SYSLOG file retaining a copy of the Copyright
Notice etc that appears whenever the machine is booted up?

Funny thing number 3:-  On my other machine, which is not connected 
to the network, I periodically see the message:-

                     ec0: Transmit: No carrier
in the console window.  It occurs once every 5 minutes I would guess.
I have tried altering the daemons running by using /etc/chkconfig,
but no avail.  The question is:- Is something missing, and is it
important, and if not how can I stop the messages appearing?

Any help with these three queries would be much appreciated
Thanks.
Peter Bladon
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