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From: boehme@leah.albany.edu (Eric M. Boehm)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.internals
Subject: Problems with su/csh on Ultrix 4.0/DECstation 5000
Keywords: ultrix csh getwd cron shell
Message-ID: <1990Nov27.005226.18032@sarah.albany.edu>
Date: 27 Nov 90 00:52:26 GMT
Sender: news@sarah.albany.edu
Reply-To: boehme@unvax.union.edu (Eric M. Boehm)
Distribution: na
Organization: State University of New York at Albany
Lines: 22
Originator: boehme@leah.albany.edu


I have run into a problem out of the blue. Suddenly, our DECstation 500
won't let me use su to switch to another user. I get the following error
message:

getwd: can't open .. -- can't start new shell

This happened suddenly. Also, after rebooting the machine, su may work
once or twice and then give the error message. This also screws up
commands I have in crontab -- they do not get run. Lately, even commands
running as root in crontab weren't being run. I even went so far as to
redo the Ultrix installation. That did not help. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Please respond (if by
e-mail) to boehme@unvax.union.edu.

Thanks in advance.

--
Eric M. Boehm
boehme@unvax.union.edu
boehme@union.bitnet