'Very strange: couldn't stat "."'...

[Mac]

Hi all,

>> My problem was that my home directory for
>> the user root was not executable by all.  Once I did a chmod a+x /root I
>> haven't received these errors any more.   Hope this helps!
>> 
>
>Thanks, Bruce, it worked after all. I'm sending the reply CC'ed to the
>list, so that if anyone more has the same problem, he can fix it.
>
>Question is, why on earth does SMBD need x permission on root's
>directory...


Samba 'idles' in some directory when it's not required to be in a
specific directory.  It always used to be that it 'idle-ed' in the
directory from which you started it, which has had some strange effects.

I seem to remember that very recent versions of Samba have the 'idle
directory' as a global config parameter. (or perhaps it now defaults to
idling in '/' to '/tmp')

Either way I'd guess that when you start Samba you're in '/root' and it
then uses that directroy to 'idle' in.  When it wants to get to
somewhere else, it has to stat() '.' to find out where it is and I guess
this is what you're hitting.

I'd always recommend starting Samba from a script, and have an explict
'cd /' just before the 'smbd' line.


                               Mac
          Assistant Systems Adminstrator @nibsc.ac.uk
                        dmccann at nibsc.ac.uk
   Work: +44 1707 654753 x285      Everything else: +44 956 237670 (anytime)