Determining the current working directory

[Ed Hon]

I am working with a database vendor to resolve an installation problem. I'm trying to install database software from a CD to a target directory, logging in as root on an HP-UX 11 system. I run an install program from the CD to guide me through the process. However it errors out, saying my target directory cannot be my current working directory, but I know they are not the same. As a matter of fact, if I specify any exisiting directory as the target directory, it errors out. If I specify a non-existant directory, it accepts but obviously I cannot install to it. Can anyone give a clue as to what might be happening? How is the current working directory determined? Is there something different about HP-UX 11? TIA.

[Christopher McCray_1]

Is it possible that what they mean by target is the location of the software to be installed. Are you by chance cd'ed into the cdrom dir when you launch the program? I know its a long shot, but just a thought.

Good luck
Chris

[Praveen Bezawada]

Hi
I am not sure what database you are installing, but if it's oracle you have to set the ORACLE home and path variables to run the installation.

...BPK...

[Magdi KAMAL]

Hi Ed,

Perhaps the installation process is installing where you are when issuing the installation process ( by dowing a pwd command ).

So if you do a change dir on the cdrom to launch the install process, this would result on errors.

1.You better change to the directory where you want to install and launch the install process by giving the absolute path from root dir "/".

2. Or, change dir to /tmp and absolute path launch of the install process giving the target directory ( which is different from /tmp of course ).


Magdi

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Ed,

Is it possible that it tries to create the directory where you specify the database to be installed, and fails if it is unable to create the directory. In that case it will fail with errors if you specify an existing directory or roor (/) to install the Database.

Can you post the error you are receiving when you specify an existing directory to install the database. What database is it anyway?.

Hope this helps

Thanks

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

If it is really giving a problem about current working directory, you can fool it by manually setting the variable. I don't know if this works for you but you can give it a try.

#PWD=Your Directory
#export PWD

-Sri

[Ed Hon]

Thanks for all the replies. The database is Progress. The target directory is the directory where the database software is to be installed. In may case it is a file system mounted at /usr/dlc . The installation CD is mounted at mount point /cdrom. I start the installation by first doing a cd /tmp, then running the installation program with /cdrom/proinst . I have also done a cd / , but it still gives the same error. The error message from the installation program is

ERROR: The destination directory cannot be the current working directory.

(Destination directory = target installation directory)

There are no environment variables to set, based on the installation instructions. I tried export PWD="/tmp" then running the install program all in the same script, but that didn't work either. Any more suggestions would be appreciated.

[Ed Hon]

I find the problem occurs, when I try to install to the root directory of a file system, such as /usr1. If I install further down in the directory structure, such as /usr1/usr2, it is OK. Puzzling.

[Ian Box]

Check the permissions on the mount-point directory.
I've seen problems relating to the current working directory if the permissions didn't allow the user to access the directory. Of course this only became apparent when the filesystem was unmounted.
Note that I've only seen this on 10.20 systems.

[Ed Hon]

The permissions on the mount-point are 777.

[Ray Jones_1]

Check the permissions on every directory in the path to the target install directory.

I've seen a directory owned by root and 700 stop an install in a sub directory.

[Sachin Patel]

Hi Ed,
My suggestion
Install your software on /usr/usr1/tbc. Then move whole directory structure to /usr

Sachin

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi
If the install does not require input once started then:-

Cron the install routine but be sure to set env variables in the cron job.

Set it for 5 min in the future, then sit back an monitor it.


It might work ???

Paula