working directory not writable

[Steven P Vallière]

I just read through a recent discussion about this
problem(?), which I also have on my system, but saw
mostly arguments about the merits of various OSes
and configurations.  I didn't see anything about the
actual issue itself, so I'm going to ask again, and
begin with the results of my own experiments...

When I upgraded to the latest BIND9, I discovered
that a new check had been added that was causing

'the working directory is not writable'

to be logged when named started.  Within a minute or
two though, named started /writing/ to files in that
directory anyway (well, their content and timestamps
changed, I /think/ that qualifies as writing).

Curios about the problem, I added some diagnostics to
the code where the error was being logged, like this
(from around line 2953 in bin/named/server.c):

  if (access(".", W_OK) != 0) {
      char pwd[256];
      char err[256];
      strcpy(err,strerror(errno));
      isc_log_write(ns_g_lctx, NS_LOGCATEGORY_GENERAL,
         NS_LOGMODULE_SERVER, ISC_LOG_ERROR,
         "the working directory (%s) is not writable [%s] by u%d g%d",
         getcwd(pwd,sizeof(pwd)), err, geteuid(), getegid());
  }

(I know it isn't pretty, but it is only temporary)

I was not quite prepared for what was logged:

   the working directory (/var/named) is not writable [Permission
   denied] by u0 g0

(sorry for the wrap)

Other info: