Hello,

When I have the following directory structure on a Linux server:

/a/b/c

and I want to create a database /a/b/c/test.fdb with gbak, the access rights of directory "c" must be rwx (readable, writeable, executable). Also the access rights to directory "a" and "b" must be r_x (readable, executable). The same with use of isql.
My question is why?
There might be some (unknown to me) reason that directory "c" must be executable, but why also directory "a" and "b"?

Can somebody explain this to me? I don't understand it.

That is normal UNIX directory permission behaviour. You must have execute permission to make any access to the directory. You generally don't need read access (which is only required to list the files, not to access them).

It is not specific to Linux or Firebird. Try it with less and a text file...

Hamish