This error occurs when a user shell task (from su -c ...) starts in a directory which it is unable to read.
I traced the cron.daily example to the updatedb script, which runs the command 'su nobody -c "/usr/bin/updatedb ..... " '. cron runs in /var/spool/cron, which is readable only by root: $ ls -ld /var/spool/cron drwx------ 2 root root 1024 Oct 9 1995 /var/spool/cron As a result, the shell running the script /usr/bin/updatedb gets an error when it calls the function getcwd() [that function walks the tree by tracing inode numbers, so needs to get the inode number of the directory '.'] I fixed that (on a RedHat system) by putting a 'cd /tmp' into the script /etc/cron.daily/updatedb.cron. Check the permissions on all the directories from / to the user home directories (presumably / and /home). Make sure that they are all at least world-readable Tim On Tue, 26 Aug 1997 04:16:34 GMT, Hamish Moffatt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On Mon, Aug 25, 1997 at 11:00:48AM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> Not too long after installing Debian 1.3.? from cheapbytes I now get : >> >> shel-init: cannot get working directory : getcwd: cannot access parent >> directories >> >> This is only with user accounts. Root doesn't do this. > >I was getting this from cron.daily for a while; seems to have stopped >now, I don't remember if I fixed anything or not. > > >Hamish >-- >Hamish Moffatt, StudIEAust [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Student, computer science & computer systems engineering. 3rd year, RMIT. >http://hamish.home.ml.org/ (PGP key here) CPOM: [***** ] 53% >Your train has been cancelled due to defective government at Spring Street.. > > >-- >TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to >[EMAIL PROTECTED] . >Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . > -- Tim Frost, Systems Engineer Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EDS (NZ) Ltd, Voice: +64 4 495-0504 P.O. Box 3647, Fax: +64 4 495-0473 Wellington, New Zealand. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
