Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!m.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!phil
From: phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Phil Howard KA9WGN)
Subject: hard linked symlinks (yeah)
Message-ID: <1991Mar24.000253.9515@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1991 00:02:53 GMT
Lines: 28

Does anyone see any technical problems with having a single inode for
a symlink, linked to under several different names?

The symlink does NOT point to a directory, it points to a file.
All of the links to the one symlink are in the same subdirectory,
for convenience.

The purpose is to have ONE command (rsh) executed under a number of
different names (various host names).  The rsh command is on a different
filesystem than the subdirectory, so a symlink is required.

The alternative was to have separate symlinks under each name, but that
appeared to be consuming a data block for each one to store the name
the symlink was pointing to.  I wanted to conserve some space.

Unlink directories, the hardlinked symlinks are easily removable.

One of the anticipated problems is that backup/restore and/or
archive/extract of them will fail.  I probably can live with that
as long as it does not cause something to crash, rather just fail
to restore the links.

Comments?
-- 

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< Phil Howard -- KA9WGN -- phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu                              >
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