I just made a new file that I want to make a shell script so as root I tried chmod 755 /etc/location/of file.

Unfortualnately the file remains a text file

I'm on mandrake 10 with kernel 2.6.3. Any Ideas????

Well all files in *nix are text files.. if your wanting it to be executable, well, the command you gave or this one: chmod +x <filename> will give it executable rights..

ls -al <filename>

And if it has rwxr-xr-x type rights.. then run the file by typing this:

./<filename>

And it should execute your script for you from there.

when I do ls -al it says:-

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 150 Apr 29 21:56. It won't execute though...

Error messages please? And script contents please?

No error messages. It seems to do what i want it too. On ls it appears as a shellscript, on the GUI (KDE) the icon still appears as a text file.

the contents of the file are:-
#! /sbin/sh

IPTABLES=/sbin/iptables
$IPTABLES -F -t nat
$IPTABLES -A POSTROUTING -t nat -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv_4/ip_forward

Is that my imagination or do you have a space after the !

Would that cause a problem???

It can and also is sh located in /sbin? Usually by default it will be in /bin

OK. I think I've sorted the problem...

I'll get back to you if it was right or wrong!

Yep, I got the problem sorted and it the end of the day it was a stupid mistake on my part.

#!/bin/sh

IPTABLES=/sbin/iptables

#All The lines below are NAT routing

# flush any old rules
$IPTABLES -F -t nat

# turn on NAT (IP masquerading for outgoing packets)
$IPTABLES -A POSTROUTING -t nat -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

# enable IP forwarding (of incoming packets)
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

was the script I should have entered which seemed to become executable on chmod 755 where as it originally didn't (can you tell me why?) and secondly I forgot to install iptables!

Well, at least I learnt what I did wrong!!!!

Thanks guys....

Funny how a person can be looking directly at that section and not see the sbin

I do think you hit that one on the head trickykid!

Don't I feel like the retard!