From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Al Viro Subject: Re: max symlink = 5? ?bug? ?feature deficit? Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:11:51 +0000 Message-ID: <20060213081151.GZ27946@ftp.linux.org.uk> References: <43ED5A7B.7040908@tlinx.org> <20060212180601.GU27946@ftp.linux.org.uk> <43EFA63B.30907@tlinx.org> <20060212212504.GX27946@ftp.linux.org.uk> <43EFBCA9.1090501@tlinx.org> <20060213000803.GY27946@ftp.linux.org.uk> <43EFD8BF.1040205@tlinx.org> <20060213073746.GG11380@w.ods.org> <1139816896.2997.19.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <20060213080331.GH11380@w.ods.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Arjan van de Ven , Linda Walsh , Linux-Kernel , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from zeniv.linux.org.uk ([195.92.253.2]:57809 "EHLO ZenIV.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751228AbWBMIMB (ORCPT ); Mon, 13 Feb 2006 03:12:01 -0500 To: Willy Tarreau Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060213080331.GH11380@w.ods.org> Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 09:03:31AM +0100, Willy Tarreau wrote: > Hi Arjan, > > On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 08:48:15AM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > > > > > I don't know exactly why recursion is used to follow symlinks, > > > which at first thought seems like it could be iterated, but > > > I've not checked the code, there certainly are specific reasons > > > for this. > > > > the problem is not following symlinks. the problem is symlinks to > > symlink to symlink to ... > > That's how I understood it, but I only thought about easy cases. Now, > I can imagine cross-FS links and I don't see an easy way to resolve > them :-/ The real problem is that there is no promise that resolution of a symlink consists of following some path. It's a very common case, all right, but not the only one. And trying to take that into account makes iterative schemes very ugly.