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From: Hendrik Jan Thomassen <hjt-Hf+EfML1qzhUecB6AVeNQA@public.gmane.org>
To: mtk.manpages-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org
Cc: linux-man-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org
Subject: small bug in unlink(2) manpage
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:17:42 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20110811081742.GA26403@vcursdoc.atcomputing.nl> (raw)


This is a report about a small bug in the manpage for the
unlink(2) system call. I found the bug in my Ubuntu 10.10
distribution; its Colophon says: "This  page  is  part  of
release  3.23  of the Linux man-pages project".

The bug is also present in the on-line manpages at
    http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/online_pages.html

The current version of the page says (under ERRORS):

> EBUSY (not on Linux)
>  The  file pathname cannot be unlinked because it is being
>  used by the system or another process and the
>  implementation considers this an error.

But if you look in the kernel source file   fs/namei.c
at routine  may_delete()  you'll see two occasions where
an EBUSY is generated. So the above "not on Linux" is wrong.

I suggest that this '(not on Linux)' be removed. It may
also improve the page if the commentary is reworded to give a
better description of the two situations. Something along
the lines of:
> The file pathname cannot be unlinked because it is being used
> by the system, e.g. if some (relative) rootdir is mounted upon it,
> or because the NFS client software created it to represent an
> active but otherwise nameless inode ("NFS silly renamed").

Just FYI: the NFS silly rename (you'll find this term mentioned
in the kernel source code) is described at:
	http://nfs.sourceforge.net/#section_d
under section D2. The reason I found this manpage bug is because
I stumbled upon one of these silly renamed files, and an strace
of the rm-command revealed the EBUSY return errno.

I am not a native English speaker, so my text can certainly
be improved upon.

Regards,
-- 
Hendrik-Jan Thomassen     <hjt-Hf+EfML1qzhUecB6AVeNQA@public.gmane.org>
AT Computing
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             reply	other threads:[~2011-08-11  8:17 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2011-08-11  8:17 Hendrik Jan Thomassen [this message]
     [not found] ` <20110811081742.GA26403-2gAsihd9xRjpBEjGIDjKf0nExbqEVREo@public.gmane.org>
2011-09-15 18:38   ` small bug in unlink(2) manpage Michael Kerrisk

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