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Description of problem:

I'm using Scientific Linux 6.6, but I am fairly sure this is an RHEL problem.  When using the '-execdir' option to find, the program apparently opens a new file descriptor every time it runs the command, and never closes it.

As a result, if you're traversing a directory tree that contains more
than $(ulimit -n) files (1024 by default), find will fail with the
message

  find: Failed to save working directory in order to run a command on `foo': Too many open files


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

findutils-4.4.2-6.el6.x86_64


Steps to Reproduce:

An easy way to see what is happening is to run "find . -execdir sh -c 'ls /proc/self/fd | wc -l' ';'".


Actual results:

The number of open file descriptors increases every time the command is run.  When it reaches 1024, find aborts with an error.


Expected results:

The number of file descriptors should be constant, and the 'find' command should succeed, regardless of how many files are found.


Additional info:

This problem doesn't occur with the Debian version of find (which is the same upstream version, 4.4.2.)

Thank you for reporting the bug.

I believe the following upstream commit will fix it:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/findutils.git/commit/?id=183115d0

diff --git a/find/pred.c b/find/pred.c
index d6bbaea..2a89a37 100644
--- a/find/pred.c
+++ b/find/pred.c
@@ -681,14 +681,16 @@ impl_pred_exec (const char *pathname,
                       0);
        }

       /* Actually invoke the command. */
       result = execp->ctl.exec_callback(&execp->ctl,
                                        &execp->state);
     }
+  if (local)
+    free_cwd (execp->wd_for_exec);
   if (target != pathname)
     {
       assert (local);
       free (target);
     }
   return result;
 }

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2016-0038.html