No subshell in Rational ClearCase environment

[Pavel Roskin]

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 elek76 at arcor.de wrote:

> I found the following error at work recently:
>
> System is:
> Linux bunox016 2.4.18-19.7.xsmp #1 SMP Thu Dec 12 07:56:58 EST 2002 i686 unknown
>
> $ mc -V
> GNU Midnight Commander 4.6.0
> Virtual File System: tarfs, extfs, cpiofs, ftpfs, fish, undelfs
> With builtin Editor
> Using system-installed S-Lang library with terminfo database
> With subshell support as default
> With support for background operations
> With mouse support on xterm and Linux console
> With support for X11 events
> With internationalization support
>
> We use Rational Clearcase for concurrent version management. This tool uses so-called views that can be defined in text files and started with a command. When a view is started, the tool opens a new shell. If I start mc in this new shell, I have no subshell. mc prints the following error message:
>
> subshell.c: couldn't open master side of pty
> pty_open_master: Exec format error

I believe glibc comes with a suid program "pt_chown" that is used as
fallback to change permissions of the slave pty.  That program is probably
missing or doesn't have correct permissions.

Maybe ClearCase uses chroot, and what is seen as /dev/pts under ClearCase
is not mounted.  Try mounting /dev/pts under ClearCase is it's possible.
Try finding pt_chown and find out why it fails.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin