isofs hardlink bug (inode numbers different)

Volker Kuhlmann
2003-01-26T23:47:49Z

I am trying to back up directory trees on CD, preserving hard links.
newer versions of mkisofs are supposedly able to do this, but although
the data is written to the isofs only once, the resulting directory
entries have differing inode numbers thus making restore operations
impossible.

When I sent a bug report to the author of mkisofs, Jörg Schilling, I
got the reply

>>mkisofs 2.01a01 (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
>>mkisofs 2.0 (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
>>mkisofs 1.15a27 (i686-suse-linux)
>
>>Google shows no reference to anything which tells me that this is not
>>supposed to work, therefore I assume it's a bug.
>
>Nachdenken hilft wie in vielen Fällen auch hier:
>
>Der Bug auch hier ist da, wo es wegen schlechter SW Qualität wahrscheinlicher
>ist: Im Linux Kernel.

(Translation: thinking helps here too, like in many other cases: the bug
is in the linux kernel, where it is more likely to be due to lower
software quality.)

Insults aside, is it true that the kernel's isofs can't produce correct
inode numbers for hardlinked files? If that is the case it would
somewhat reduce the usefulness of isofs for backups.

Volker

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