/usr/.. does not exist ???

[Alex Martelli]

A funny problem on one of our R6000s: all filesystems mounted
directly on root, such as /usr and /tmp, appear all at once to have
"no parent directory".  Eg 'echo /usr/.*' gives . and .., however
'ls -dl /usr/.*' lists ., but complains that .. does not exist.
Residing in /usr/what/ever, /bin/pwd complains (not in terms of being
unable to cross mountpoint, but in terms of non-existing directories).

Only immediate impact is that symbolic links in /usr that try to
"go back" with .. break, and I can work around that by making the
paths in said links absolute instead of relative, but I really do
wonder what CAN be happening - other 6000s don't have this problem, nor
does a filesystem mounted NOT on root, such as /usr/lpp/info.

I've looked around a lot, but have been unable to find a reason or a
fix.  Any hints?
-- 
Alex Martelli - CAD.LAB s.p.a., v. Stalingrado 53, Bologna, Italia
Email: (work:) staff at cadlab.sublink.org, (home:) alex at am.sublink.org
Phone: (work:) ++39 (51) 371099, (home:) ++39 (51) 250434; 
Fax: ++39 (51) 366964 (work only), Fidonet: 332/401.3 (home only).