From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 12 11:08:34 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DF8E7467 for ; Wed, 12 Feb 2014 11:08:34 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mailhost.m5p.com (ip-2-1-0-2.r03.asbnva02.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [IPv6:2001:418:0:5000::16]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 61E47150D for ; Wed, 12 Feb 2014 11:08:34 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonderland.m5p.com (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by mailhost.m5p.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id s1CB8QSx029780 for ; Wed, 12 Feb 2014 06:08:31 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from george+freebsd@m5p.com) Message-ID: <52FB562A.20509@m5p.com> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 06:08:26 -0500 From: George Mitchell User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.2.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Thoughts on Multi-Symlink Concept References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.73 on 10.100.0.3 X-Greylist: Sender passed SPF test, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (mailhost.m5p.com [IPv6:::1]); Wed, 12 Feb 2014 06:08:32 -0500 (EST) X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 11:08:34 -0000 On 02/12/14 00:09, Jason Hellenthal wrote: > Hi All, > > Now I already know the thoughts on symlink hell within filesystems all to > well considering most Linux flavoring's. But I am curious as to what all > your opinions would be to add symlink support to multiple target files much > like what you could do with cat(1) or portalfs to include a bunch of files > in one instance but similar to the following examples in place of such. > > Instead of: cat /path/to/files* > ln -sm /path/to/files* ./my_concat_list > cat ./my_concat_list > > Or > > ln -sm /path/to/file1 /path/to/file2 ./my_concat_filters > pfctl -v -f ./my_concat_filters > > Personally while I know it's a hack, but I feel it would bring some glue to > programs and other such situations that do not have file include support > and add support per-say way to create a repeatable playlist to shorten user > operations at any given time. > > Obviously this isn't anywhere else implemented and would need to be a BSD > extension of ln(1) but I find that it could be a beneficial feature for > those that could use it to its full potential. > > I've thought about the same instance also being done with hardlinks but I > keep coming across the idea that there are too many race conditions that > would be found with that. > > Anyway . . . opinions, thoughts, ideas, criticism . . . welcome. > > > Thanks for your time. [...] My gut feeling is that it pushes functionality that belongs in userland down into the kernel, plus probably introducing new security loopholes. -- George