hive table missing

[Sam Darwin]

Hi,

We are seeing a hive table is gone unexpectedly.

I suspect that this must have been caused by someone somewhere issuing
a "drop table" command.But it's unclear.

My question is :   are there other known ways for hive to lose a table
besides "drop table".  For example, let's say that the underlying
hdfs file system is having some trouble, it is unreachable for a few
minutes, maybe hive could think "I don't see the hdfs files I need for
this table.   I will assume the user wishes to delete the table."
And then it proceeds to cause an automatic deletion. That
would certainly be terrible.   :-) But I hope you see what I
am getting at..Other ways which might cause a table to be lost,
besides someone typing in the "drop table" command in a hive session.

Thanks,
Sam

pipeout files

[Sam Darwin]

Hi,

I am seeing like one million of these files on our hadoop cluster.

1005717 files like /tmp/hdfs/hdfs_2012082902171088341605155583849.pipeout
1005742 files like /tmp/hdfs/hive_job_log_hdfs_201208290217_1000376604.txt

My questions are:

1.   What is a .pipeout file, and can they be deleted at any time?
What might happen if a pipeout file is removed that shouldn't be
removed?

2.   Is it entirely up the admin to log rotate these?Why aren't
they rotated by default when you install the packages?

Thanks,
Sam