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Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 00:37:38 +0900
From: Anthony <anthony@magix.com.sg>
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To: Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu>
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Subject: Re: Should mount --bind not follow symlinks?
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Alexander Viro wrote:
> Don't mix symlinks with mounts/bindings. Too much PITA and yes, it had
> been deliberately prohibited. You _really_ don't want to handle the
> broken symlinks and all the realted fun [...]

No. But I hoped _you_ might :-)

> - race-ridden at extreme and useless.
> In automount-like setups you can _replace_ symlinks with bindings.
> No need to mix them.

Hmm.  My /etc/auto.opt contains

*       :/export/opt/&/LATEST

where all the "LATEST"s etc are symlinks.  I found it quite
an elegant way to maintain different versions: the symlink
was de-facto a trivially simple version database.

Does the version state now *have* to be listed in
/etc/auto.opt explicitly?  That feels a little retrograde.

Perhaps I'm blissfully unaware of all sorts of vile
race conditions, but why can't the *automounter* chase
the symlinks even if mount shouldn't?  Or am I missing
a neater solution?

Rgds

Anthony
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