OpenMacNews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > whoa! i wasn't suggesting that at all ... rather, perhaps, simply a perms > check > from within the initdb script and an 'informative' error to the > end-user.
We're doing the best we can already: when the failure occurs, we really don't know which directory is the problem, and cannot find out because we can't navigate above it to find out its name. I note that pwd is not any better: g42:~ tgl$ mkdir ~/zit g42:~/zit tgl$ mkdir ~/zit/zap g42:~/zit tgl$ chmod 111 ~/zit g42:~/zit tgl$ cd ~/zit/zap g42:~/zit/zap tgl$ pwd /Users/tgl/zit/zap g42:~/zit/zap tgl$ /bin/pwd pwd: : Permission denied g42:~/zit/zap tgl$ (bash is probably not doing anyone any favors by masking the problem in its built-in PWD command.) There are limited situations where it makes sense to create a directory that has execute but not read permissions ("drop box" directories being the main thing I can think of offhand). But it's simply wrong to create a directory that way without a very specific purpose in mind. You need to try to reconstruct how /Volumes/data/ got to be that way, and see if it was simple pilot error or if some tool messed up the permissions for you. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster