apparently something happened between yesterday and today to make sh a symlink to bash. I'm not sure if this is normal but I can't run configure scripts anymore...it simply says permission denied. sh, bash, and ./configure all have execution bits.

the only thing I have changed since yesterday is installing gaim...which I don't think would break anything.

any suggestions on what went wrong? I've tried doing sh ./configure but then the enviroment variables don't get passed to the script, causing it to fail.

Or, could someone link me to the bourne shell project page where I can download and compile it?

/bin/sh is often a link /bin/bash. What are the permissions on /bin/bash? (ls -l /bin/bash)

cheers

Jamie...

sohmc@zulu:~> ls -l /bin/sh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Apr 30 06:01 /bin/sh -> bash*
sohmc@zulu:~> ls -l /bin/bash
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 528k Apr 12 2002 /bin/bash*


another clue to the problem...I decided to try the scripts in sh and this is what I get:
sh-2.05a$ ./setup-gettext ---gettext-tool
sh: ./setup-gettext: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Permission denied

Uhm... I take it you can execute /bin/bash and /bin/sh directly if you wish? If you can then copy and paste the top line of the seutp-gettext script

cheers

Jamie...

let me clarify: I can run *some* configure scripts. In fact, I just ran gaim's, and gettexts without problems. the first line all say the same thing:

#!/bin/sh
#! /bin/sh

(I don't think the space matters, does it?)

It sure does... Lose the space and it'll all work!

Jamie...

the ironic thing is:

sohmc@zulu:~/src/gaim> head -1 /src/gaim/gaim-0.62/configure
#! /bin/sh
(works correctly, note the space)

sohmc@zulu:~/src/gaim> head -1 ./autogen.sh
#!/bin/sh
(does not work correctly)

adding a space does not work either.

Very weird! You sure there is no trailing space or special chars on the first line?

cheers

Jamie...

according to vi, no.

it isn't just the gaim-cvs autoconf. sh doesn't work for irssi. same problem.

wierd....should I install a newer bash? mine is *slightly* old, as in two or three minor revisions off.

what's odd now is that my sh scripts that I've written myself that have worked in the past no longer work...

something had to have happen in the past two days that has changed the behavior of sh...

the only thing I did was install gaim 0.62...hmmm

even better! the same script described in the last post doesn't work in it's original directory but works in /tmp!

alrighty...I've narrowed down the problem. I cannot execute #!/bin/sh scripts when the file is on my external drive!

any suggestions on clearing that up?

What filesystem is it?
If you do an ls -l on it, who's the owner
of the stuff on the external drive? You or
root? :)

Cheers,
Tink

Also whats the output from just running the mount command. It sounds like the file system might be mounted with the noexec option which basically irnores all the executable bits.

Damn good thinking Tinkster

cheers

Jamie...

entry from /etc/fstab:
/dev/sde1 /ext_drv ext3 noauto,users,rw 0 0

changed to:
/dev/sde1 /ext_drv ext3 exec,noauto,rw 0 0

according to mount, the options user and users automatically include the noexec flag.

and all sh scripts work again!! yay!!

That was fun. thanks everyone for your advice and help.