Re: Your backup is unsafe!

Albert D. Cahalan (acahalan@cs.uml.edu)
Sun, 1 Aug 1999 22:02:36 -0400 (EDT)


Matthew Kirkwood writes:
> On Sun, 1 Aug 1999, Khimenko Victor wrote:

>> Wrong. LFN is attached to short name.
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds very like an
> LFN is actually a (rather restricted) symlink.

Yes, long names are most like symlinks.

> Perhaps that's a potential solution.
>
> It could make for rather ugly directory listings, but IMO
> that's better than the ugly code that we have now.

I just did "strace tar xf -" to check what happens. Symlinks ought
to work just fine! (tar does not remove existing files)

-- The Rules --

1. When a symlink (long name) is created, the file it refers to is
also created. You get a zero-length normal file.

2. mkdir() can turn an empty file into a directory. (gross)

3. Removal of a file automatically removes any symlinks.

4. When moved between directories, file-symlink pairs go together.

5. There are various other odd limitations on name length, etc.

6. When a normal file is created with a long name, you get a
symlink pointing to a normal file with 8.3 name format.
(this may allow somewhat normal filesystem use)

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