Too many levels of symbolic links error

Hello,

We use php in cgi mode. PHP version is 5.2.3.

I am using popen to execute grep on a file

popen($cmd, "r");

where $cmd = "/usr/bin/grep xyz /var/tmp/log/session"

and log is a symbolic link pointing to /var/log

ls -l /var/tmp/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 8 Jan 31 23:17 log -> /var/log

In the shell I am able to run this command fine.
When I execute from php using popen I get this error
[chrome://firebug/content/blank.gif]grep: /var/tmp/log/session: Too many levels of symbolic links

If I don't use symbolic link it works fine. But I need to use symbolic link
due to some limitations.

Any idea what could be wrong?

Thanks