amos@taux01.UUCP (Amos Shapir) (06/20/88)
The problem: In release 3.1, /etc/init sometimes fails mysteriously when trying to run commands in /etc/inittab. The cause: /etc/init reads /etc/TIMEZONE to get the environment variables for commands. Instead of letting a /bin/sh do it, it builds the environment pointers by looking for an '=' character in each line, then using everything to the left of it as the variable name, and everything on its right as the value. This is primitive and kludgey, since it puts in the environment variables which were not exported, and even things that are not variables at all - mainly comments that happen to contain '='. A bad envp list may crash a shell. The Solution: Until release 4.0 comes along, do not keep anything except TZ=timezone in your /etc/TIMEZONE; pay extra attention to '=' characters in comments. -- Amos Shapir (My other cpu is a NS32532) National Semiconductor (Israel) 6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel Tel. +972 52 522261 amos%taux01@nsc.com 34 48 E / 32 10 N