Strange log enteries (bad output - /etc/magic)

[Mark Martinec]

 Jostein,

> Recently I've seen my logs fill up with the following enteries:
> 
> 616492 Mar 31 17:41:01 tellus amavis[10539]: (10539-05) (!)NOTICE:
> Skipping bad output from file(1) at [0, p001], got: /etc/magic, 211:
> Warning: string exten
>        sion `B' invalid
> 616493 Mar 31 17:41:01 tellus amavis[10539]: (10539-05) (!)NOTICE:
> Skipping bad output from file(1) at [0, p001], got: /etc/magic, 321:
> Warning: string exten       sion `B' invalid
> [...]
> I'm running amavisd-new-2.6.4 (20090625) under Debian 6.0.1 with the
> «squeeze-updates» repo for the new amavis/spamassissin packages. Now,
> amavis works, but with the volume of mails I receive on the server in
> queestion, the above output clogs up the logs quite badly.
> 
> Now what does the above mean? Is it attachments to mails that are
> malformed, or is the file /etc/magic that f00bar or something else?

It is either the file(1)'s magic database that is screwed, or the file(1)
program itself. Try it from a command line, you should be able to
see the same warnings. Reinstall or upgrade the file(1) utility,
or complain to your packager.

  Mark