UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have Solaris 9 box that I am trying to clean up to use as an apache web server. In the process of attempting to remove an old copy of apache in /usr/local I have run into a problem.
Logged in as root (or anything else) when trying to remove, chmod or chown anything in the /usr filesystem - the system responds that the action failed because it is a Read-only file system.

Well OK - but should not root be able to delete anything? If not how do I change /usr to RWX. 'chmod 777 /usr' does not work.

Check your /etc/vfstab.
There is a option of mounting a file system read-only, so as a security requirement/option, some folks mount /usr as read-only. Then executables are safe from being replaced with hacked copies.
Suggest you double check with any other SAs that work on the system before changing it or deleting anything. If this is a firewall system, then make sure you check!

RTM - thanks for the reply. Checked the /etc/vfstab and saw nothing against /usr to make it read-only. Also I compared the file to a sister system in another state. The /etc/vfstab files are identical and I do not experience the problem on the other system.

If the error is that the file system is read-only then somewhere (/etc/vfstab, startup script...) something mounted it that way. The default is for read-write.

Try a mount -o remount -o rw /usr

RTM
Tried the mount remount our suggested and I got a "/usr busy' response. After spending another hour checking files to no avail I finally gave up and did an init 6.
Sure enough, there was a problem with the file system - ran fsck - and everything restored in a proper working mode.

Thanks for your time.