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From: fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,news.admin,news.config
Subject: Re: Symbolic links to cross-posted articles
Message-ID: <23012@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 16 Feb 88 06:44:39 GMT
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Netnews uses UNIX "hard" links to link the multiple instantiations
of a news article into the multiple newsgroup directories. Netnews
is most certainly NOT making N copies of an article for appearance
in N newsgroups, except on VMS systems, under Eunice (but then,
they deserve to lose). I suggest that you go back and read up on the
UNIX filesystem structure, paying particular attention to the concept
of "inodes" and "directories." A "hard" link is simply another
directory entry that refers to the same inode; no extra disk space
required, modulo that required by the directory entry.

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu