Hello, Will. Inline answers are below.. >Ah, I was sat in /usr/share/file at the time. Does... > >$ ls -l /usr/share/file/magic /usr/share/magic >-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 356854 Apr 28 06:08 /usr/share/file/magic >lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 31 11:15 /usr/share/magic -> file/magic > >Look OK on your system? Yes, exactly the same. >If you actually less the file do its contents >look OK? You should have a bunch of enties along the lines of... >#------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ># commands: file(1) magic for various shells and interpreters ># >0 string : shell archive or >script for antique kernel text >0 string/b #!\ /bin/sh Bourne shell script >text executable >0 string/b #!\ /bin/csh C shell script text >executable ># korn shell magic, sent by George Wu, gwu at clyde.att.com >0 string/b #!\ /bin/ksh Korn shell script text >executable Yes, exactly the same lines of code. At least, now I know a bit more how the shell is run when directly running the command. :-) >What happens if you just type in "ldd" without quotes, that's a shell >script and it's in your PATH. This is something interesting. If I run 'ldd', it works. Now I copied this script to the / directory and run it again with /ldd. That works too. Now I have transformed that file into my little echo script: #!/bin/sh echo testing And that works too. So I have now two files (/ldd and /ldd2) which are scripts and which contains exactly the same content and which behaves differently, from the same directory. One is done from scratch and the other is modified from another working script. Again each file's contents: #! /bin/sh echo testing The result is the following when executed: [root at box /]# ./ldd testing [root at box /]# ./ldd2 [root at box /]# Here is the file's permissions: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 25 Aug 2 14:07 ldd -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 25 Aug 2 14:07 ldd2 Strange, isn't it ? Is there something else as suid bits or so which could be mixed up ? >What about aliases and the rest of your shell environment, is there >anything out of the ordinary in there? What's the output of set and >env ? Here are the results: [root at box /]# set BASH=/bin/bash BASH_ARGC=() BASH_ARGV=() BASH_LINENO=() BASH_SOURCE=() BASH_VERSINFO=([0]="3" [1]="00" [2]="15" [3]="1" [4]="release" [5]="i686-redhat-linux-gnu") BASH_VERSION='3.00.15(1)-release' COLORS=/etc/DIR_COLORS.xterm COLUMNS=157 DIRSTACK=() EUID=0 GROUPS=() G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 HISTFILE=/root/.bash_history HISTFILESIZE=1000 HISTSIZE=1000 HOME=/root HOSTNAME=box.mydomain.com HOSTTYPE=i686 IFS=$' \t\n' INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/j2sdk KDEDIR=/usr LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LESSOPEN='|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s' LINES=60 LOGNAME=root LS_COLORS='no=00:fi=00:di=00;34:ln=00;36:pi=40;33:so=00;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=01;05;37;41:mi=01;05;37;41:ex=00;32:*.cmd=00;32:*.exe=00;32:*.com=00;32:*.btm=00;32:*.bat=00;32:*.sh=00;32:*.csh=00;32:*.tar=00;31:*.tgz=00;31:*.arj=00;31:*.taz=00;31:*.lzh=00;31:*.zip=00;31:*.z=00;31:*.Z=00;31:*.gz=00;31:*.bz2=00;31:*.bz=00;31:*.tz=00;31:*.rpm=00;31:*.cpio=00;31:*.jpg=00;35:*.gif=00;35:*.bmp=00;35:*.xbm=00;35:*.xpm=00;35:*.png=00;35:*.tif=00;35:' MACHTYPE=i686-redhat-linux-gnu MAIL=/var/spool/mail/root MAILCHECK=60 OLDPWD=/root OPTERR=1 OPTIND=1 OSTYPE=linux-gnu PATH=/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/root/bin PIPESTATUS=([0]="0") PPID=3077 PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}\007"' PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ ' PS2='> ' PS4='+ ' PWD=/ QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt-3.3 SHELL=/bin/bash SHELLOPTS=braceexpand:emacs:hashall:histexpand:history:interactive-comments:monitor SHLVL=1 SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/libexec/openssh/gnome-ssh-askpass SSH_CLIENT='::ffff:89.214.2.219 2074 22' SSH_CONNECTION='::ffff:89.214.2.219 2074 ::ffff:151.35.1.234 22' SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/1 SUPPORTED=en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en TERM=xterm UID=0 USER=root _=./testing1 [root at anoigo /]# env HOSTNAME=box.mydomain.com TERM=xterm SHELL=/bin/bash HISTSIZE=1000 SSH_CLIENT=::ffff:89.214.2.219 2074 22 QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt-3.3 OLDPWD=/root SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/1 USER=root LS_COLORS=no=00:fi=00:di=00;34:ln=00;36:pi=40;33:so=00;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=01;05;37;41:mi=01;05;37;41:ex=00;32:*.cmd=00;32:*.exe=00;32:*.com=00;32:*.btm=00;32:*.bat=00;32:*.sh=00;32:*.csh=00;32:*.tar=00;31:*.tgz=00;31:*.arj=00;31:*.taz=00;31:*.lzh=00;31:*.zip=00;31:*.z=00;31:*.Z=00;31:*.gz=00;31:*.bz2=00;31:*.bz=00;31:*.tz=00;31:*.rpm=00;31:*.cpio=00;31:*.jpg=00;35:*.gif=00;35:*.bmp=00;35:*.xbm=00;35:*.xpm=00;35:*.png=00;35:*.tif=00;35: KDEDIR=/usr MAIL=/var/spool/mail/root PATH=/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/root/bin INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc PWD=/ JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/j2sdk LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/libexec/openssh/gnome-ssh-askpass SHLVL=1 HOME=/root LOGNAME=root SSH_CONNECTION=::ffff:89.214.2.219 2074 ::ffff:151.35.1.234 22 LESSOPEN=|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 _=/bin/env Kind regards, Daniel