Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!felix!info-ultrix
From: bin%pernod@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Bad choices for symlinks!
Message-ID: <81527@felix.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jan 89 20:14:02 GMT
Sender: info-ultrix@felix.UUCP
Reply-To: bin%pernod@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral)
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
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Approved: zemon@felix.UUCP
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Reply-to: bin%pernod@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral)


I recently had occasion to repartition an RD54 on a VAXstation 2000 running
Ultrix 2.2.  I'm glad I checked to see what was symbolically linked.
This machine uses a tape drive remotely on another machine (no local tape).
I was splitting /usr into two smaller partitions (/usr + /news) so that
I wouldn't have to include all the news junk in the /usr backups.  Lo
and behold, /etc/rrestore and /etc/rdump are symbolic links into
the directory ../usr/etc...

If I'd blithely gone ahead and newfs'd /usr, I wouldn't be able to
restore it, because rrestore is on that partition!  A nice situation.
One had best be careful to make copies of stuff like this on the root
partition, just in case disk reconfiguration tools get blasted in
non-obvious ways.

Paul DuBois
bin@primate.wisc.edu
dubois@primate.wisc.edu


[ Rdump & rrestore have been moved from /usr/etc to /bin in ULTRIX v3.0.
	-- Art Z. ]