Sudo error: Sorry, you must have a tty to run sudo

Rai    Linux     configuration, error, fix, Linux, permission, rsync, sudo, troubleshoot, tty, user, visudo

From time to time, we perform remote actions on the servers that we manage, including, but not limited to, automated file transfers. For this, rsync is used to simplify the operation and until recently, I encountered this weird error:

sudo: sorry, you must have a tty to run sudo

But where on this bloody earth did that error came from? All was going well until a new server was added to the pool of money-making machines and powerful enough to throw me off guard. This can’t be happening! I own these machines, I built them from scratch and configured them exactly the way I built the other servers! I could not be any wrong-er, the server must be leading an uprising against me!

Okay, that was an exaggeration (or paranoia). But it is true that the server has the same configuration as the rest. Except for one little line of default configuration:

Defaults requiretty

Comment out this line in visudo (must be root to edit) and everything should checkout.

How to Fix PECL PHP Error: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Permission denied

Rai    Linux     bash, denied, error, fix, how, interpreter, Linux, pear, pecl, permission, php, red hat, server, xdebug

I recently tried installing xdebug on a RHEL 4 machine, and somehow, the server decided that it should refuse having xdebug installed. As if running a heavy Java app is not enough, I decided to add more processes for the server to run. And it looks like the server has got me:

[root@server src]# pecl install xdebug
downloading xdebug-2.0.5.tgz ...
Starting to download xdebug-2.0.5.tgz (287,621 bytes)
.............done: 287,621 bytes
12 source files, building
running: phpize
Configuring for:
PHP Api Version:         20041225
Zend Module Api No:      20060613
Zend Extension Api No:   220060519
/usr/local/bin/phpize: /tmp/pear/temp/xdebug/build/shtool: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Permission denied

So, like I always do, I tackle the problem with my handy tool: Google. I found out that this error occurs when /tmp is mounted as read-only (ro). You can check this by looking at the /etc/fstab file and check the /tmp partition.

Okay, now I know what the problem is. How do I get over this?

Lazy that I am, I moved the /tmp/pear directory, and create a symlink to the root directory.

[root@server src]# mv /tmp/pear /tmp/pear-ori
[root@server src]# mkdir /root
[root@server src]# ln -s /tmp/pear /root/tmp/pear

Now that the directory from where the PECL scripts are running is in /root, the installation should go smoothly.

Another way to go around this is to remount the /tmp:

[root@server src]# mount -oremount,exec /tmp

I have not tried the above command because I thought that creating symlink is a safer approach rather than messing with the mounts.

If there are other ways to fix this, let me know using the comment box below.