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When I use the find command on Solaris 10, I get the following error message:

find: stat() error /hgfs: Operation not applicable

What does this error mean?

NOTE: the output from mount:

$ mount -v | grep hgfs 
/hgfs on /hgfs type vmhgfs read/write/setuid/devices/rstchown/dev=140 on Sun Jul 12 07:57:25 2015
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    What is mounted on /hgfs? In any case the answer is probably that it's some kind of special filesystem and the it's best to avoid asking find to search through it. – Celada Jul 13 '15 at 5:55
  • I suppose look for the permissions applicable for the find to stat on particular directory too. – Dzango Jul 13 '15 at 6:01
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It means that the filesystem that is mounted on /hgfs (a filesystem of type vmhgfs, the VMware host/guest filesystem) doesn't support the stat system call. stat is used to return details about nodes on a filesystem and there's no requirement that every filesystem support it.

You can ignore the error message. If you won't want it appearing in the output of your find command, perhaps exclude /hgfs from the directories you're searching?

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