topic looped symlink in Operating System - Tru64 Unix

looped symlink

Bengt Nilsson_2 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:07:14 GMT

My system is a tru64-5.1B-4.

A software I just installed wants the path to a work directory to be /usr/users/ms0//work.
Since I don't have this, I am tempted to make a symlink

ln -s /usr/users /usr/users/ms0

to make it work.

Will this be outright dangerous, apart form being just ugly?

I have a feeling there may be a risk for an infinite loop is some function will scan the directory tree.

BN

Re: looped symlink

Martin Moore — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:11:03 GMT

Ugly as it is, it should work. Because /usr/users/ms0 is a symlink pointing back to /usr/users, then /usr/users/ms0//work will point to /usr/users//work, and as long as this exists, it should work fine. There is no recursion involved (provided there is no username ms0; that could cause problems.)

Trying the symlink the other way around could cause some rather odd behavior. :)

Martin

Re: looped symlink

Bengt Nilsson_2 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:03:52 GMT

Thanks!