I stopped using relative paths and find long time ago (unless doing interactive work).

This approach is much safer and easier to maintain :

Code:

cd $ABSOLUTE_PATH_DIR && find . <further options and operands>   || exit 1
cd -

This way, an error if directory does not exist or permission is denied is printed on stderr.
You will see this error in local mail if running in crontab (if no stderr redirection has been made inside crontab line).

Do not use trailing slashes with directory variables.
Example of things going haywire when doing that :

Code:

set -x
#DIR=/home/user # someone decided to comment this line or makes a mistake.
# more lines of code, hundreds of them
cd $DIR/ && find . -type f .. || exit 1 # This will expand into cd / && find .. # enough said

Decommission -> create a virtual machine out of it - if you can, not some obscure OS/hardware

Good things to do before decommission are (if you cannot virtualize it in lab) :

All above is done in couple of minutes or less, and is golden for post mortem analysis.


Hope that helps
Regards
Peasant.