What generates the text file busy message in Unix

Question

What operation generates the error  text file busy   I am unable to tell exactly   I think it is related to the fact that I m creating a temporary python script  using tempfile  and using execl from it  but I think that execl changes the file being run

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It s a while since I ve seen that message  but it used to be prevalent in System V R3 or thereabouts a good couple of decades ago   Back then  it meant that you could not change a program executable while it was running   For example  I was building a make workalike called rmk  and after a while it was self-maintaining   I would run the development version and have it build a new version   To get it to work  it was necessary to use the workaround   gcc -g -Wall -o rmk1 main o -L  -lrmk -L Users jleffler lib 64 -ljl if   -f rmk     then mv rmk rmk2   else true  fi   mv rmk1 rmk   So  to avoid problems with the  text file busy   the build created a new file rmk1  then moved the old rmk to rmk2  rename wasn t a problem  unlink was   and then moved the newly built rmk1 to rmk   I haven t seen the error on a modern system in quite a while   but I don t all that often have programs rebuilding themselves

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Don t know the cause but I can contribute a quick and easy work around  I just experienced this this oddity on CentOS 6 after cat  gt  shScript sh  paste   Z  then editing the file in KWrite  Oddly there was no discernible instance  ps -ef  of the script executing  My quick work around was simply to cp shScript sh shScript2 sh then I was able to execute shScript2 sh  Then I deleted both  Done

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I came across this in PHP when using fopen   on a file and then trying to unlink   it before using fclose   on it   No good      handle   fopen  file txt       do something unlink  file txt      Good    handle   fopen  file txt       do something fclose  handle   unlink  file txt

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This occurs when you try and write to a file that is currently being executed by the kernel  or execute a file that is currently open for writing    Source  http   wiki wlug org nz ETXTBSY

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This error means some other process or user is accessing your file  Use lsof to check what other processes are using it  You can use kill command to kill it if needed

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In my case  I was trying to execute a shell file  with an extension  sh  in a csh environment  and I was getting that error message   just running with bash it worked for me  For example     bash file sh

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You may find this to be more common on CIFS SMB network shares  Windows doesn t allow for a file to be written when something else has that file open  and even if the service is not Windows  it might be some other NAS product   it will likely reproduce the same behaviour  Potentially  it might also be a manifestation of some underlying NAS issue vaguely related to locking replication

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root h1 bin 0   mount h2    x              root h1 bin 0   cp  usr bin cat  x usr local bin  root h1 bin 0   umount  x     root h2   0    usr local bin cat  -bash   usr local bin cat  Text file busy root h2   126    ubuntu 20 04  5 4 0-40-generic nfsd problem  after reboot ok

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One of my experience   I always change the default keyboard shortcut of Chrome through reverse engineering  After modification  I forgot to close Chrome and ran the following   sudo cp chrome  opt google chrome chrome cp  cannot create regular file   opt google chrome chrome   Text file busy   Using strace  you can find the more details   sudo strace cp   chrome  opt google chrome chrome 2 gt  amp 1  grep  Text file busy  open   opt google chrome chrome   O WRONLY O TRUNC    -1 ETXTBSY  Text file busy

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Minimal runnable C POSIX reproduction example I recommend understanding the underlying API to better see what is going on  sleep c  define  XOPEN SOURCE 700  include  lt unistd h gt   int main void        sleep 10000      busy c  define  XOPEN SOURCE 700  include  lt assert h gt   include  lt errno h gt   include  lt stdio h gt   include  lt sys types h gt   include  lt sys stat h gt   include  lt fcntl h gt   include  lt unistd h gt   int main void        int ret   open  quot sleep out quot   O WRONLY O TRUNC       assert errno    ETXTBSY       perror  quot  quot        assert ret    -1      Compile and run  gcc -std c99 -o sleep out   sleep c gcc -std c99 -o busy out   busy c   sleep out  amp    busy out   busy out passes the asserts  and perror outputs  Text file busy  so we deduce that the message is hardcoded in glibc itself  Alternatively  echo asdf  gt  sleep out  makes Bash output  -bash  sleep out  Text file busy  For a more complex application  you can also observe it with strace  strace   busy out  which contains  openat AT FDCWD   quot sleep out quot   O WRONLY    -1 ETXTBSY  Text file busy   Tested on Ubuntu 18 04  Linux kernel 4 15 0  The error does not happen if you unlink first notbusy c  define  XOPEN SOURCE 700  include  lt assert h gt   include  lt errno h gt   include  lt fcntl h gt   include  lt stdio h gt   include  lt sys types h gt   include  lt sys stat h gt   include  lt unistd h gt   int main void        assert unlink  quot sleep out quot      0       assert open  quot sleep out quot   O WRONLY O CREAT     -1      Then compile and run analogously to the above  and those asserts pass  This explains why it works for certain programs but not others  E g  if you do  gcc -std c99 -o sleep out   sleep c   sleep out  amp  gcc -std c99 -o sleep out   sleep c  that does not generate an error  even though the second gcc call is writing to sleep out  A quick strace shows that GCC first unlinks before writing   strace -f gcc -std c99 -o sleep out   sleep c   amp  grep sleep out  contains   pid  3992  unlink  quot sleep out quot             0  pid  3992  openat AT FDCWD   quot sleep out quot   O RDWR O CREAT O TRUNC  0666    3  The reason it does not fail is that when you unlink and re-write the file  it creates a new inode  and keeps a temporary dangling inode for the running executable file  But if you just write without unlink  then it tries to write to the same protected inode as the running executable  POSIX 7 open   http   pubs opengroup org onlinepubs 9699919799 functions open html   ETXTBSY  The file is a pure procedure  shared text  file that is being executed and oflag is O WRONLY or O RDWR   man 2 open  ETXTBSY pathname refers to an executable image which is currently being executed and write access was requested   glibc source A quick grep on 2 30 gives  sysdeps gnu errlist c 299      ERR REMAP  ETXTBSY     N   quot Text file busy quot    sysdeps mach hurd bits errno h 62   ETXTBSY                          0x4000001a            Text file busy     and a manual hit in manual errno texi   deftypevr Macro int ETXTBSY  standards BSD  errno h   errno ETXTBSY  26  Text file busy  An attempt to execute a file that is currently open for writing  or write to a file that is currently being executed   Often using a debugger to run a program is considered having it open for writing and will cause this error    The name stands for   text file busy      This is not an error on  gnuhurdsystems    the text is copied as necessary   end deftypevr

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If you are running the  sh from a ssh connection with a tool like MobaXTerm  and if said tool has an autosave utility to edit remote file from local machine  that will lock the file    Closing and reopening the SSH session solves it

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If trying to build phpredis on a Linux box you might need to give it time to complete modifying the file permissions  with a sleep command  before running the file   chmod a x  usr bin php scripts phpize      amp  amp  sleep 1      amp  amp   usr bin php scripts phpize

[unix] What generates the "text file busy" message in Unix?

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