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From: ast@botter.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Request for help with rmdir bug
Message-ID: <1195@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Wed, 3-Jun-87 08:19:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: botter.1195
Posted: Wed Jun  3 08:19:43 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jun-87 04:14:15 EDT
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Distribution: world
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 17


It has been previously reported that there is a bug in rmdir.  If you type

mkdir foo
rmdir foo/../foo

rmdir fails.  I checked the code of rmdir.  What happens is that rmdir
first unlinks . and .. from foo, then it tries to access foo/../foo to
unlink the directory, but that path is no longer valid because .. is now
gone.  I tried the same test on our VAX with 4.1 BSD and it failed
there too.  

The question is: does anyone have an idea how to make rmdir work without
modifying the kernel.  Unlinking the directory before removing . and ..
does not sound like a good idea.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)