Re: Hard links
Joey Hess writes:
> Topi Miettinen wrote:
> > Some packages use hard links to provide different names for single
> > executable. I think this practice is at least questionable:
> >
> > - It's hard to notice hard links, they look exactly like normal files
> > (AFAIK, there are no tools exept ls -li and find -inum). Many programs
> > support symbolic links, including web/ftp servers.
>
> Web servers are rarely used to browse /usr/bin.
>
> Ftp servers support ls -li.
I could try to list all programs which can show symlinks that cannot do so
for hard links, but that's not the point. Locating hard links with only
ls -li or find -inum is inhuman task, whereas any graphical file browser
can easily show symlinks with different icon, for example (I don't use
them, so I don't know whether they actually do so).
> > - It's easy to make mistakes when copying (for example, over NFS/SMB).
> > Suddenly you have less disk space than before and no clue what happened.
> > While this can happen with symlinks, it's probably less likely.
>
> It's easy to mess up symlinks. If you delete the actual file, without
> noticing there are symlinks to it, you end up with broken symlinks. With
> hard links, this is not an issue. This makes hard links more robust and a
> better choice for certian situations. This is why they continue to exist,
> and have not been replaced entirely by symlinks allready.
Ok, which do you think is more common operation, deleting executables or
copying them? Which would some sysadmin consider a safe thing to do?
> > Should some text be appended to Policy, discouraging (or even forbidding?)
> > hard link use?
>
> No, both types of links have thier uses.
Then there is consistency issue. Package X uses symlinks but package Y
hard links. Why can't they use the same?
-Topi
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