Re: Hard links to directories
Re: Hard links to directories
- Subject: Re: Hard links to directories
- From: Mike Zuhl <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 21:58:05 -0700
On Oct 2, 2008, at 5:50 PM, Chris Idou wrote: Remember when Microsoft was busted using secret APIs to make their in-house apps better than anyone else's apps, and everyone though that stunk and was anti-competitive?
I don't see why this sort of stuff should be considered some kind of private detail of Time Machine. Especially since it is in the kernel, and the API is a public one. The behavior of the API is undocumented, but it shouldn't be. The behavior of all public APIs should be fully documented and available to all.
BTW, I do realise that linking directories is pretty dangerous, but that's in large part because none of the utilities or libraries take the possibility into account. This is part of the reason I'm interested in how it behaves.
The implementation is not rocket surgery. In the link() syscall handler (at least in BSD Unix) there's a single test that keeps you from making a hard link to a directory. -Snip- and you have directory hard links. And you have broken every piece of filesystem walking code ever written. The program failure mode is long run times, culminating in path-too-long errors, funny memory overruns, etc. The system failure mode is usually inability to boot or to crash as soon as certain system maintenance daemons ran.
Yes, I've done it. Pulled it out almost immediately.
--MAZ
|
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Darwin-kernel mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden