Re: Should we have MAXSYMLINKS?

Alexander Viro (peeter_joot@VNET.IBM.COM)
Fri, 15 Jan 1999 06:56:17 -0500 (EST)

> > It is an unsafe patch (ie: I coded up a sysctl to raise it at run
> > time), and we have to live with the fact that this could
> > potentially cause kernel stack to run out if we raise it too high
> > -- not very good, but we don't really have an option if we want to
> > build on Linux:(
>
> If only root and set this sysctl (as one would expect), I don't think
> it's a problem. You might want to submit this in the hope it goes if
> for 2.2.x -- otherwise we'll just have to manually change the limit
> of 5 to 20 or something.

It can be set only as root, and I had originally posted it when I first coded
it up. It was not accepted because it was dangerous and the proper fix was
to eliminate the recursion.

I could repost it, but I think it would likely not be accepted for the same
reason.

By CC to the kernel mailing list:
It should be noted that the defacto "solution" that people have for
this problem is to aribrarily raise the constant from 5 to something higher
than 5 (like 8 or 10 in our case). This is pretty easy to do now even without
a sysctl because it now only has to be changed in one place, but it does
require a recompile. Although a sysctl for the ELOOP limit of 5 is dangerous
it is an acceptable workaround in many cases for a problem that is not likely
to be fixed any time soon.

Peeter

--
Peeter Joot                                          peeterj@ca.ibm.com
IBM DB2 Operating System Services                    416-448-3359 (tie line 778)


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/