Redirecting output of system calls with perl in an initramfs

Question

I've got this perl script that runs with the initramfs. I've come across a bunch of little problems I don't understand that are surely related to the shell. The particular one I'm asking about is this:

system("/sbin/e2fsck -f $dev");

system("/sbin/e2fsck -f $dev >/dev/null");

The one redirecting to /dev/null fails. Ultimately, I want to be grabbing the output:

open IN, "/sbin/e2fsck -f $dev |";

But this fails too.

Here's the answer: e2fsck needs a terminal for interactive repair. Passing the -y flag fixed that. Thanks.

Answer 1

Is it because your /bin/sh is really /bin/dash ? Cf this discussion on bad-fd-number and this fix which has some suggestions for using a syntax compatible with dash .