Sponsored Content
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Too many levels of symbolic links Post 40625 by Perderabo on Friday 19th of September 2003 11:21:06 AM
Old 09-19-2003
You can have many symbolic links in a filesystem. The limiting factor is how many inodes are available. That is not the problem. You have too many symbolic links for this particular pathname.

Suppose the system tries to open a file called "a". But it finds that "a" is a symbolic link to "b". The system then must open "b". But "b" is a symbolic link to "c". Now the system must open "c". And "c" could be a symbolic link to "d" and so on. The system must reach a real file or directory after 32 tries. If not, the open will fail.

32 is a lot. I'll bet you have a loop. Something like this:

ln -s a b
ln -s b a
vi a
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Finding symbolic links

How can I find all symbolic links across the network to a directory (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: mehtad
2 Replies

2. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Symbolic Links for a File

how do i get the list of symbolic link names for a particular file programatically (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: b_u_n_1234
4 Replies

3. Solaris

cp a dty without symbolic links?

Hi, - we have copy (cp command) to do to save all the contents of a dty BUT we dont want to copy the files corresponding to symbolic links contained whithin this dty - the box is a sun solaris one - and the cp commande do not say avything about that? thanks for help Jakez (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: JAKEZ
7 Replies

4. AIX

Symbolic Links

I am linking a directory as follows: ln -sf /home/xxx/userid/real_files/* /home/xxx/userid/linked_files This gives me symbolic links for all the files in the real_files directory in the linked_files directory. My question is, if I go and remove a file in the real_files directory and then go... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: rcarnesiii
1 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Symbolic links between directories

Hi all, lets consider 2 directories test1 and test2. I want to link test2 to point to test1, how do u do this? (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: Mr. Zer0
4 Replies

6. Solaris

symbolic links between servers

Hi Guys... I want to create a link using ln -s for a directory that does not exist on the box. How do I do that? I had some files from Box A directory /d1/u01 and I copied the files across to another Box lets say Box B on directory /d2/u02. Now I want a link so that this path /d1/u01... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: Phuti
2 Replies

7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Symbolic Links

Hi all, I have scoured the entire forum for this but to no avail unfortunately. Basically, I would like to remove my symbolic link from my folder name i.e. foldername -> /a/b/c/d/f where f is indeed a folder. I have tried rmdir but this does not work and in actual fact deletes the... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: cyberfrog
4 Replies

8. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Permissioning for symbolic links

I've just started using UNIX in a Linux vmplayer. I'm trying to run the command: ln -s `pwd`/$1 `python -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print get_python_lib()"`/$1 in a script from an online tutorial, but I keep getting an error message: ln: creating symbolic link... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: ChipT
1 Replies

9. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Symbolic links in UNIX

Hi, I have a file with more than 1 layers of soft links for it. For ex. ls -la .profile .profile@ -> /home/act/.profile_abc ls -la /home/act/.profile_abc@ -> .profile_final I want to get the name of the last file (i.e. .profile_final) when I refer to .profile using shell script. I... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: deo_kaustubh
2 Replies

10. Solaris

Symbolic links

Soft link,Hard link brief explanation (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: RAJU KAVATI
1 Replies
SYMLINK(2)						      BSD System Calls Manual							SYMLINK(2)

NAME
symlink -- make symbolic link to a file LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h> int symlink(const char *name1, const char *name2); DESCRIPTION
A symbolic link name2 is created to name1 (name2 is the name of the file created, name1 is the string used in creating the symbolic link). Either name may be an arbitrary path name; the files need neither to be on the same file system nor to exist. RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, a zero value is returned. If an error occurs, the error code is stored in errno and a -1 value is returned. ERRORS
The symbolic link succeeds unless: [ENOTDIR] A component of the name2 prefix is not a directory. [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters. [ENOENT] A component of the name2 path does not exist. [EACCES] A component of the name2 path prefix denies search permission. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. [EEXIST] name2 already exists. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while making the directory entry for name2, or allocating the inode for name2, or writing out the link contents of name2. [EROFS] The file name2 would reside on a read-only file system. [ENOSPC] The directory in which the entry for the new symbolic link is being placed cannot be extended because there is no space left on the file system containing the directory. [ENOSPC] The new symbolic link cannot be created because there there is no space left on the file system that will contain the sym- bolic link. [ENOSPC] There are no free inodes on the file system on which the symbolic link is being created. [EDQUOT] The directory in which the entry for the new symbolic link is being placed cannot be extended because the user's quota of disk blocks on the file system containing the directory has been exhausted. [EDQUOT] The new symbolic link cannot be created because the user's quota of disk blocks on the file system that will contain the symbolic link has been exhausted. [EDQUOT] The user's quota of inodes on the file system on which the symbolic link is being created has been exhausted. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while making the directory entry or allocating the inode. [EFAULT] name1 or name2 points outside the process's allocated address space. SEE ALSO
ln(1), link(2), readlink(2), unlink(2), symlink(7) HISTORY
The symlink() function call appeared in 4.2BSD. BSD
June 4, 1993 BSD
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:21 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy