Just a note: The problem was fixed when I changed the permissions of /var/empty from 700 to 755. Additionally I had to restart the sshd. In other words, the correct settings for /var/empty seem to be: chmod 755 /var/empty chown SYSTEM.SYSTEM /var/empty Regards, Jochen -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/