Symptoms
When you run the Distribution Agent and replicate large objects on an instance of SQL Server 2017 on Linux, you may receive the following error message:
Error message in Replication Monitor:
The distribution agent failed to create temporary files in 'C:\COM' directory. System returned errorcode 5. (Source: MSSQL_REPL, Error number: MSSQL_REPL21100)
Get help: http://help/MSSQL_REPL21100
Error in SQL errorlogs:
Error: 14151, Severity: 18, State: 1.
Replication-Replication Distribution Subsystem: agent AgentName failed. The distribution agent failed to create temporary files in 'C:\COM' directory. System returned errorcode 5.
Status
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.
Resolution
This issue is fixed in the following cumulative update for SQL Server:
About cumulative updates for SQL Server:
Each new cumulative update for SQL Server contains all the hotfixes and all the security fixes that were included with the previous cumulative update. Check out the latest cumulative updates for SQL Server:
Workaround
To work around this issue, you can create a folder "/com" and give mssql user permission.
References
Learn about the terminology that Microsoft uses to describe software updates.
