[sr-dev] Shell Problems in Debian Squeeze

[Jan Janak]

Hello,

It appears that Debian Squeeze does not use Bash as interpreter for system
scripts and for scripts executed via /bash/sh anymore. It uses dash by default
which claims to be POSIX compliant, but does not support "bashisms" typically
found in more complex scripts.

As result it can happen that some of our shell scripts won't work on recent
installations of Debian and Ubunty. There are two easy remedies:

  * Switch back to bash with sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash for the entire system.
  * Replace /bin/sh with /bin/bash if you find a broken script

See also: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh

-Jan