Do I need to worry about “tail: unrecognized file system type 0xbeefdead”

tail

I'm trying to follow a regular text file with tail -f -n 50 filename. I get the information from the file just fine, except I always get this error message:

tail: unrecognized file system type 0xbeefdead

It happens on every file. The 0xbeefdead worries me — it looks like a hacker tag.

$ tail --version
tail (GNU coreutils) 8.4

Best Answer

If you're getting this warning when using the StorNext filesystem and are running coreutils 8.21 or earlier, there isn't much to worry about; this warning message is expected.

GNU tail has hardwired knowledge about a number of filesystem types, and warns when it encounters an unknown type. Support for the StorNext filesystem was added to tail in coreutils in April 2013, and was released in coreutils 8.22. The commit is here. If you can't get that version of coreutils, or wish to edit and recompile the source yourself, here is the diff from that commit:

src/stat.c
@@ -399,6 +399,8 @@ enum
     return "selinux";
   case S_MAGIC_SMB: /* 0x517B remote */
     return "smb";
+  case S_MAGIC_SNFS: /* 0xBEEFDEAD remote */
+    return "snfs";
   case S_MAGIC_SOCKFS: /* 0x534F434B local */
     return "sockfs";
   case S_MAGIC_SQUASHFS: /* 0x73717368 local */
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