[PLUG] perl does nothing but segfault

[Randall Hansen]

Folks ~

As of about 36 hours ago, perl on my workstation does nothing but
segfault.  Some trivial things work (e.g. $ perl -e "print 'foo'"),
but any script which uses a module fails instantly with "Segmentation
fault."

My system:
  Debian 'testing' (aka 'Sarge')
  Linux kernel 2.4.20
  Perl 5.8.0

After a while debugging two nights ago, in desperation I rebooted -
and it worked!  (I felt the icy touch of Windows on my neck...)  For a
few hours anyway, until it stopped again.

None of the commands, daemons, or cron jobs I run seem to do it --
I've tried all the ones I can think of.  I rebooted again (argh)
yesterday, and it's been fine since then, but it still makes me
nervous.

I don't know enough to debug the problem - even what logs to start
examining.  I don't know how long the system runs before perl dies, or
any idea what precipitates it.  

I was talking about it yesterday and Wil asked what kernel I was
running.  "A rooted one," Ingy replied, before I had a chance to.
Funny, but I hope wrong.  The only thing open to the public is port
22, and I keep the box very up to date.  I ran 'chkrootkit' yesterday
(booted from a CD) and it found nothing.

Wil also wondered if it were corrupted memory or disk corruption where
perl lives.  How can I check for these definitively?

I'm still gathering information, and will post back if anyone's
interested.  Until then, can anyone help?

Thanks in advance,

Randall
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