permission denied for an application

Tom Douglas · 07-21-2007, 05:50 PM

Hello!

After getting my feet wet with the Linux system for the past few months, I finally installed my first application (outside of RPM's). To be exact, I installed Mozilla Sunbird.

This is on Fedora 6.

The path that Sunbird is on is /opt/sunbird. As a superuser, I can successfully execute Sunbird, but not as a regular user. This tells me that I have a permissions issue.

I'm looking at the attributes for /opt and /opt/sunbird directories. The root is the owner and groups have read and execute rights. Same with the sunbird script.

In comparison, I looked at /sbin and any of the executables within /sbin and find the same thing with those attributes, both scripts and directories. I can run any /sbin executable. IE: iptables, netstat, the whole mess.

What am I missing here???

One question I just answered as I'm writing this is the superuser has to be in the /opt/sunbird directory, then ./sunbird. That brings up sunbird -- no problems. As a regular user, no sunbird.

What's up???

Thanks!

Tom D.

wjevans_7d1@yahoo.co · 07-21-2007, 06:07 PM

You have described the problem reasonably well, but as prose, not as poetry. Show us the data.

Please do the following.

As a non-root user (best would be the user you'd like to succeed running sunbird), run the program script. It will present you with a prompt. Then do these commands:

Code:

ls -ld /
ls -ld /opt
ls -ld /opt/sunbird
echo $PATH
/opt/sunbird     # or however you invoke it on the command line
exit             # get out of program script

The output of program script will be in a file called typescript. Post the content of typescript to this thread in LQ. But put it between CODE markers, thus:

Click the Go Advanced button at the bottom of your editing window.
In the new editing window, highlight the content of file typescript with your mouse.
Click the # icon at the top of that new editing window.

Then let's see where we are.

Tom Douglas · 07-25-2007, 05:22 AM

Hi!

I run both the script that you suggested in the following capture, and manual entry afterwards.

[tomd@tweety ~]$ ./typescript
: No such file or directory
: No such file or directory
: No such file or directory
/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/tomd/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin
./typescript: line 5: /opt/sunbird: is a directory
[tomd@tweety ~]$

Here's the manual entry method.....just because I'm curious why my script produces different results.

[tomd@tweety ~]$ ls -ld /
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Jul 24 16:54 /
[tomd@tweety ~]$ ls -ld /opt
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jul 21 15:09 /opt
[tomd@tweety ~]$ ls -ld /opt/sunbird
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Jul 21 16:43 /opt/sunbird
[tomd@tweety ~]$ ls -la /opt/sunbird
total 13164
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10492 Sep 30 2005 run-mozilla.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7680 Jun 14 06:07 sunbird
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9734488 Jun 14 06:14 sunbird-bin
# Partial listing shown here
[tomd@tweety ~]$ echo $PATH
/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/tomd/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin
[tomd@tweety ~]$ /opt/sunbird
bash: /opt/sunbird: is a directory
[tomd@tweety ~]$ /opt/sunbird/sunbird
[tomd@tweety ~]$ cd /opt/sunbird
[tomd@tweety sunbird]$ ./sunbird
[tomd@tweety sunbird]$

Executing either /opt/sunbird/sunbird or ./sunbird, I get the prompt back within two seconds. That's what is making me wonder what's up.

Thanks!

Tom D.

wjevans_7d1@yahoo.co · 07-26-2007, 01:43 AM

I was hoping it was a more generic question, one with which I could help you. It seems to be a question specific to sunbird.

All I can suggest is this. Sorry.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/

Tom Douglas · 07-26-2007, 05:33 AM

The way I was trying to approach the app installs was from a generic point. I have several applications that I'm trying to install. I picked out Sunbird as a generic example

I'll look at the link you suggested.

Thanks!

Tom D.

wjevans_7d1@yahoo.co · 07-26-2007, 11:29 PM

You have several applications you're trying to install, and each gives you a shell prompt after a few seconds?

Tom Douglas · 08-19-2007, 07:40 PM

HI, folks! Sorry for the long absence. Just a lot going on in the past few weeks.

Anyhow, I peeked at a familiar Sunbird page (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/) and not seeing anything that would help me. But then I can be "blind as a bat!"

Is there something on this page that I should try? Would it be worth an attempt to download the source files and compile/install?

Thanks again!

Tom D.

wjevans_7d1@yahoo.co · 08-20-2007, 06:48 AM

If you go to that page and click on the FAQs link, you'll find a list of places where you can discuss Sunbird issues.