Windchill shell error on Linux

[SWeiler_9940261]

After installing Windchill PDMLink 12.1.2.2 on a RHEL 8.7 system (and same issue on RHEL 7.9 also), launching a Windchill shell results in the following error message:

readlink: missing operand
Try 'readlink --help' for more information.
dirname: missing operand
Try 'dirname --help' for more information.
dirname: missing operand
Try 'dirname --help' for more information.

In the Windchill shell environment, most commands seem to work, such as Windchill version gives expected results. It seems that the Classpath is not set effectively and thus commands to compile Java code will fail. For example, the following command fails:

javac -classpath ${CLASSPATH}:${WT_HOME}/srclib/tool/Annotations.jar -d ${WT_HOME}/codebase AfterEDRloader.java

But substituting the variable will yield successful compilation:

javac -classpath /opt/ptc/windchill/windchill/codebase:/opt/ptc/windchill/windchill/codebase/WEB-INF/lib/*:/opt/ptc/windchill/windchill/lib/*:/opt/ptc/windchill/windchill/tomcat/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/ptc/windchill/windchill/tomcat/bin/tomcat-juli.jar:/opt/ptc/windchill/windchill/wex/codebase:${WT_HOME}/srclib/tool/Annotations.jar -d ${WT_HOME}/codebase AfterEDRloader.java

Has anyone seen this behavior? What are possible consequences of this? How to resolve this and launch a Windchill shell cleanly?

[ScottMorris]

we run our servers on rhel, but i have not seen this error before

[SWeiler_9940261]

We've run various versions of Windchill on CentOS 6 and 7, RHEL 7 and 8 and never encountered this issue before. Trying to figure out what is unique about this one. Signs seem to point to access or security issue but not yet determined. 

[RandyJones]

What happens if you try to run the readlink or dirname commands yourself? Both inside Windchill shell and outside Windchill shell?

[SWeiler_9940261 · Accepted solution]

Did a new install on a Windows Server 2019 VM where the issue was not present. At this point looking to move to Windows instead as it gets around the issue.