From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 11 20:30:57 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C2B8741 for ; Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:30:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kob6558@gmail.com) Received: from mail-da0-f45.google.com (mail-da0-f45.google.com [209.85.210.45]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D06EF18 for ; Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:30:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-da0-f45.google.com with SMTP id w4so927764dam.32 for ; Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:30:56 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=pD/8Vn2BZ/t8+wpf4OaaldDr/ZUAYHoLkeKXIthL47w=; b=e1NYPTFxLmLWKIjkvzGxFntj8zWFued/ExXXaDF6VefqXtyFVJDTI1x78KMZpUDEIj aTsMoJXCXCcxkBCRe84hsS0W3TFNbiGogbFXwg1u8WYbVw5m5O9H2wUGF2PGplq76V/Z 8n3Z9o1FndGGwK1d+uN4oBEs2TH6h0bWCMmq8x7Nfch63bBiZqS4Ci7Bmjz8o6+J/8PO evP7CEVRq9SZjrnuaNmIz1CdUYW1mY8uPbJwQOov3cyPP+CKL4J91CsefRU875orvaQ8 U+Aes3OYald8l3MdhZGz62toekpEirtjZBEwoO++QFIudT49V4h4LgOMk+MxKxx5fzXN L/jw== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.68.223.230 with SMTP id qx6mr235032619pbc.159.1357936256517; Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:30:56 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.67.2.65 with HTTP; Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:30:56 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <50F01F52.10006@icritical.com> References: <50E42264.4010609@freebsd.org> <50E4357B.7020400@freebsd.org> <50F01F52.10006@icritical.com> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:30:56 -0800 Message-ID: Subject: Re: installworld failure due to cross-device links From: Kevin Oberman To: Matt Burke Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:30:57 -0000 On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 6:18 AM, Matt Burke wrote: > On 01/02/13 13:26, Nathan Whitehorn wrote: >> Thanks for the patch! I've committed it (slightly modified) as r244958. >> I haven't taken any action on the chgrp/chown issue, though. > > Similarly, 'make distribution' fails when /root is a separate filesystem: > > cd /usr/src/etc/root; install -o root -g wheel -m 644 dot.profile > /tmproot/root/.profile; rm -f /tmproot/.profile; ln > /tmproot/root/.profile /tmproot/.profile > ln: /tmproot/.profile: Cross-device link > *** [distribution] Error code 1 > > Is there any real advantage of hard links over symlinks nowadays? Yes. In fact, hard links are essential for some purposes. Key advantage of hard links is that you can create and use them as long as needed and then just delete them. Any remaining hard links are unaffected. When the last hard link is deleted, so is the file. Symlinks, on the other hand are simply pointer to a real file and if the file is deleted, the symlink remains, but is broken. Of course, symlinks can cross file systems when hard links can't. Both are likely to remain useful and neither is appropriate for all applications. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer E-mail: kob6558@gmail.com