Re: NFS tries following remote symlinks as if local!
On Tue, 2001-11-20 at 14:35, nate wrote:
> Adam Warner said:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've come across this crazy problem and I hope someone knows what's
> > going on.
> >
> > I am using kernel-level NFS. Debian unstable. 2.4.14. I have
> > exported /
> >
> > I can mount the remote filesystem on my client machine no problem.
> > But if I try to change to a remote symlinked directory I get, for
> > example:
>
> this is normal and expected behavior. all a symlink is is a pointer.
> it points to a file. even if a file doesn't exist.
Nate as you can gather from my follow up post I have a higher level of
understanding than that.
The remote symlink points to the correct location on the remote system.
Having always used Samba for remote file accesses (so I could also
access the files using a Windows machine) I expected NFS to follow
remote symlinks on the remote filesystem (just like when I navigate a
file system when ssh'ed into a remote box). I've learned an important
lesson.
Since I primarily use symlinks to hide the underlying file system layout
I just expected the symlinks to continue to act transparently.
Though I can see the point of Dave's "Good Thing" response.
If I am backing up the files on my remote computer I will have to be
careful to use the -d option in cp. Otherwise I will also back up parts
of my local computer as the remote symlinks translate to local paths on
my computer.
I just tried converting my absolute symlinks to relative ones. But it
still doesn't work (because it appears I don't have the ability to
descend into mounts). Here's the scenario:
I'm in the NFS mount point on my local computer. I "ls -l" and see this
particular link.
home -> mnt/data/home
So if I cd to home I should continue down the remote filesystem. Note
that there is no slash (/) before mnt. This is a relative path.
But it doesn't happen. Instead the mnt/data directory is empty. It
appears NFS doesn't descend into mount points either. I've tried adding
the "nohide" option to disable this but it made no difference.
Regards,
Adam
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