tar wont work: Cannot exec: Too many levels of symbolic links 1

[linuxMaestro]

# tar -xzvf bfd-current.tar.gz
tar (child): gzip: Cannot exec: Too many levels of symbolic links
tar (child): Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

How do I fix this?

 

[ericbrunson]

It's probably a recursive link or something. I'd try doing a tzvf and seeing if I see anything suspicious, then use the various options to tar to exclude it.

 

[linuxMaestro]

It won't even let me test it
# tar -tzvf bfd-current.tar.gz
tar (child): gzip: Cannot exec: Too many levels of symbolic links
tar (child): Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

 

[linuxMaestro]

Also gcc wont work:
gcc: installation problem, cannot exec `as': Too many levels of symbolic links

 

[ericbrunson]

I read the error message too long, tar is trying to run gzip and that is failing. I bet if you tried running 'gzip' on the command line, it would fail.

I think you have a recursive symlink somewhere in your path or something.

 

[linuxMaestro]

Thanks it was in my path

 

[linuxMaestro]

How do I change the PATH permenantly? I know I can do it for my login in .profile, but how do I change it serverwide?

 

[ericbrunson]

/etc/profile