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strace is a tool that would have identified the origin of the problem (a permission problem) without the need to grope. The small script to isolate the issue is a good strategy that has the additional benefit to help convincing other people of the issue.

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strace can never be shilled enough. I’ve solved so many issues with it that were complete mysteries otherwise. A common and simple problem is a missing file something needs to initialize, but there’s no error emitted for it anywhere. strace will make that obvious in a snap (I had this problem on early LXC)

It should be in every admin/devs toolbox!

Strace, dtrace, bpftrace are great tools in situations like this one. The code is a good approximation of what's happening, but monitoring the actual behaviour can make many issues obvious.

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