UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hmmm....

You said that the value of "$SHELL" is "/bin/bash" somewhere up in this thread. You also said, that "which bash" gives the same output, "/bin/bash". Am i correct so far?

Because if i am, i don't understand the "bad interpreter" error message. It looks like the script is unable to load a new instance of /bin/bash to execute the script in it, but the location is the same as indicated by the value of "$SHELL" and the which command.

Please run the following command from the commandline and post the output here:

Code:

ls -lai /bin/bash
file /bin/bash
what /bin/bash

Additionally please post the line of the file /etc/passwd for root. One of the fields in this file is the login shell for the user and in your case, assuming your user is "root", it should look similar to that:

Code:

root:!:0:0:root user:/home/root:/bin/bash

If it is not "/bin/bash" we know at least why the "bad interpreter" message comes from.

It might - as a remote chance - be that the file is either corrupted or a link to some other file which i would like to find out with the other commands. It might - also a remote chance - be that there is something overmounted via NFS (in this case you are in really deep kimchi), so please post the output of the "mount" command.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Thanks a mil to all who chimed in! It works!!!

Ok, WHY does it work now?

A problem is not solved when the symptom had gone away. A problem is solved only when it is fully understood what led to it in first place. (This is one of the more awful cognitions gained in 30 years spent in IT business.)

bakunin

Here's the output from the commands you gave above:

Code:

ls -lai /bin/bash

98169 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 626028 Feb 11 2003 /bin/bash

Code:

file /bin/bash

/bin/bash: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.2.5, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

Code:

what /bin/bash

-bash: what: command not found

Code:

more /etc/passwd

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

Ok, this all looks good. /bin/bash looks like it is the executable it is supposed to be. I don't understand why the first line of the script, which should be:

Code:

#! /bin/bash

leads to an error. Have you checked there are no special characters in it or after it? Try to retype the first line of the script. There should be no characters left from the text (that is, the octothorpe "#" has to be the first character on the line) and there should be no characters trailing.

You wrote that it worked now. What exactly have you done to make it work?

bakunin

When I tested the script you provided and moved FILE.1 FILE.2 FILE.3 to dir3, that worked. I don't know why. But I just left it (with the spaces in between the line) and it worked.

I had retyped and retyped the entire scripts many times and it didn't work, but I didn't retype yours, just cut and paste and that worked.