"perl: cannot execute"

[JI HUI]

Three perl script application were running on a HP-UX 10.20 machine. When tried to start another perl script, "perl: cannot execute" was shown. The message was shown even for a "perl -v" command. the permission setting was correctly with "x". After killing the three processes. It becames OK.

Any one know what would be possible cause of the problem. Thank you

[Sandor Horvath_2]

Hi !

1.
Check again the first line in your script

#!/usr/bin/perl

Check /usr/bin/perl is exist and executable.

2.
Try start it in a different shell ( csh ) and may be found the mistake.

Saa

[CHRIS_ANORUO]

Increase the kernel parameter maxusers value. This is a macro that will increase some other values like nfile and nproc , etc

[Victor BERRIDGE]

Hi,
Were you always executing the scripts as the same user?, there is a kernel parameter: maxuprc - maximum processes per user - you may have reached...
Increase its value and try again...
Good luck

Victor

[JI HUI]

Hi, thank you for you prompt reply.

I did check the processes run by the user by "ps -ef |grep user_id", less than 10 processes were shown under this user id. and maxuprc was set to 256.

I even could not start "perl" as well even I logged in as "root", but I could other program, such as sam, sar.

Any suggestion what may go wrong?

Another question: how to log the number of processes which was run by a particular user?

thank you.

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

Your script is not running the perl interpreter from the correct path. Please check that your perl executable resides in the path specified in the first line of your script.

If your script calls the perl interpreter from /usr/bin, then your script would reflect in its first line: #!/usr/bin/perl

To resolve this problem, either modify the path in your perl script to where your perl interpreter resides eg. change #!/usr/bin/perl to #!/usr/local/bin/perl, or copy/soft-link your perl interpreter to where it should reside
eg. ln -s /usr/local/bin/perl /usr/bin/perl

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim
Brainbench MVP for Unix Admin
http://www.brainbench.com

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

To count the number of processes run by a specific user, run the following command to minus off the single line count for the heading: # expr `ps -fu $userid|wc -l` - 1

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim
Brainbench MVP for Unix Admin
http://www.brainbench.com

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi,

Could you check which program you start when typing 'perl -v'.
At the prompt, type 'which perl'
It could show that you have a file called 'perl' in your PATH, especially if your PATH includes the current directory (.)

What happens if you type '/usr/bin /perl -v' or '/usr/local/bin/perl -v' (depending of your installation directory) ?

Best regards,

Dan

[JI HUI]

I had even "cd" to the directory where the "perl" is located and tried to start it with "perl -v". But it failed.

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi,

As the modification date of your perl executable been changed recently?
What is the output of 'what /usr/bin/perl' ?

Dan

[Dan Hetzel]

Oops, typo....

Should read "Has the modification...."

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

If you are not able to run perl from the perl -v from the directory containing the executable, Please check your PATH settings. Your current directory should be in your PATH settings.

Try either:

$ PATH=$PATH:.
$ perl -v

Or:

$ ./perl -v

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim
Brainbench MVP for Unix Admin
http://www.brainbench.com

[JI HUI]

Just to clarify,

I did tried "./perl -v" as well at the directory where perl executable is installed.

As I mentioned in my first message, without changing anything, just killing the three processes, I can start "./perl -v" or "perl -v" and any perl script.

Really hope to get a clue what may go wrong.

thank you for those who has give me suggestion