/bin/sh: bad interpreter: Permission denied

Calum · May 4, 2003, 5:38pm

today i started the LFS book (version 4.0).
Basically i am using slackware 9.0 to try and install a new linux completely from source on another partition.

Now i took the book's recommendations and created a user called lfs so i wouldn't have to do the stuff as root, and i have got the new LFS partition mounted at /mnt/lfs
the first thing we do is to compile a static version of bash to put in our new linux partition, because we want a statically compiled working set of utilities with which to build the new system when we chroot into the new location (at /mnt/lfs, or /dev/hda6 to its mates).
Now the thing is, well you can see what the thing is here:

lfs@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a$ ./configure --enable-static-link 
--prefix=/mnt/lfs/static --with-curses && make && make install

-su: ./configure: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Permission denied

lfs@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a$ su
Password:

root@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a# ./configure --enable-static-link 
--prefix=/mnt/lfs/static --with-curses && make && make install

bash: ./configure: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Permission denied

root@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a# exit

lfs@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a$ ls -al /bin/sh

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            4 Apr 20 18:44 /bin/sh -> bash*

lfs@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a$ ls -al /bin/bash

-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     bin        628664 Sep 22  2002 /bin/bash*

the first attempt is as user "lfs" but then i su to root and get the same error! any idea what the issue is? i am stumped.

norsk_hedensk · May 4, 2003, 8:28pm

try running configure with sh, eg;
sh configure

Calum · May 5, 2003, 3:27pm

hmm, i thought that was going to work for a minute, but:

lfs@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a$ sh ./configure

checking build system type... ./support/config.guess: line 900: ./dummy-640: Permission denied
./support/config.guess: line 1291: ./dummy-640: Permission denied
configure: error: cannot guess build type; you must specify one

lfs@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a$ su
Password:

root@boxotrix:/mnt/lfs/static/sources/bash-2.05a# sh configure

checking build system type... ./support/config.guess: line 900: ./dummy-788: Permission denied
./support/config.guess: line 1291: ./dummy-788: Permission denied
configure: error: cannot guess build type; you must specify one

thanks for the input though...

norsk_hedensk · May 5, 2003, 9:22pm

well running configure without sh was the problem. now the problem is a configure problem. take a look at the INSTALL file for bash if its there. someone else here might be able to tell you what to do, i am not too sure what options you have to pass to configure to get it to work. but that is how your run it;
sh configure

oh one more thing, you can run configure and make as normal users, but make install you will need root permissions to do.

Calum · May 6, 2003, 8:14am

well, the 'INSTALL' says:

The simplest way to compile Bash is:

`cd' to the directory containing the source code and type
`./configure' to configure Bash for your system. If you're using
`csh' on an old version of System V, you might need to type `sh
./configure' instead to prevent `csh' from trying to execute
`configure' itself.

Running `configure' takes some time. While running, it prints
messages telling which features it is checking for.

Type `make' to compile Bash and build the `bashbug' bug reporting
script.

Optionally, type `make tests' to run the Bash test suite.

Type `make install' to install `bash' and `bashbug'. This will
also install the manual pages and Info file.

The `configure' shell script attempts to guess correct values for
various system-dependent variables used during compilation. It uses
those values to create a `Makefile' in each directory of the package
(the top directory, the `builtins', `doc', and `support' directories,
each directory under `lib', and several others). It also creates a
`config.h' file containing system-dependent definitions. Finally, it
creates a shell script named `config.status' that you can run in the
future to recreate the current configuration, a file `config.cache'
that saves the results of its tests to speed up reconfiguring, and a
file `config.log' containing compiler output (useful mainly for
debugging `configure'). If at some point `config.cache' contains
results you don't want to keep, you may remove or edit it.

......

i feel a little silly i never saw this before, but i am still a little confused about why it can't guess the system type on its own, it's linux 2.4.20 on an i686 (slackware 9.0) which is hardly an unusual system type one would imagine...