Re: Symlink indirection

[Andrew Walrond <andrew@walrond.org>]

Hi James.

Thanks for the info; my application is now entirely plausible :)
And apologies for asking an FAQ. (Google didn't throw up anything useful)

BTW is documented anywhere except the code?

Andrew

> 
>  The link count is for recursively following symlinks, as the original
> question wanted to know ... and has been discussed on lkml numerous
> times.
> 
>  Andrew, one extra piece of information you might not know is that the
> above value doesn't come into play when the new symlink is the last
> element in the new path, then you get a higher value.
>  The full code...
> 
>         if (current->link_count >= max_recursive_link)
>                 goto loop;
>         if (current->total_link_count >= 40)
>                 goto loop;
> [...]
>         current->link_count++;
>         current->total_link_count++;
>         UPDATE_ATIME(dentry->d_inode);
>         err = dentry->d_inode->i_op->follow_link(dentry, nd);
>         current->link_count--;
> 
> ...Ie. a link from /a -> /b/c where "b" is a symlink takes the
> "max_recursive_link" value (5 on vanilla kernels) but if "/b/c" was a
> symlink then you get to use the 40 value.
>