UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I'm trying to understand a "strange" setup: on one of the systems, when I cd into a directory, /data/logs, it takes me into /data/uat/logs (instead of /data/logs). These two directories are not symbolicly linked.

Here's what I have:

In /data, "ls -li" shows (among other things):

Code:

$ ls -li
2485350 drwxr-x---  5 rage users   4096 Apr 19 21:15 logs
 241437 drwxr-x---  7 rage users   4096 Apr 20 10:47 uat

If I issue "cd logs", the shell first shows "/data/uat/logs", then brings me into /data/uat/logs, like this:

Code:

[UAT] /data$ cd logs
/data/uat/logs
[UAT] /data/uat/logs$

In /data/uat, "ls -li" shows:

Code:

$ ls -li
2460508 drwxr-x---  2 rage users 987136 Apr 20 10:15 logs

Also, while at /data, "ls -l /data/logs" or "ls -l logs" shows what we have in /data/logs; but "cd logs" from here changes into "data/uat/logs".

"mount" shows nothing that contains "logs". And, no alias defined for "cd".

I'm just wondering how /data/logs and /data/uat/logs are linked like this?

Thx!

hard link?

Thx VBE. But no, it's not hard link, as you can see the inode numbers are different (hard link is not allowed for linking directories).

Hi,
this was intriguing! I'm not so sure that hard links to directories are impossible, only disabled in a generic sense for the OS, but can probably be circumvented, although I don't know how.

But to me it looks like /data/uat/logs is the "real" directory and /data/logs is a link to it, because /data/uat/logs has more space allocated for its directory entries and /data/logs only has the minimum 4096 allocated. Just a guess anyway.

Do You know what created this structure? An installer? An application? A user?

I will follow this with interest

Best regards,
Lakris

Thx Lakris. Sorry I didn't make it clear, /data/uat/logs and /data/logs are 2 different directories and they contain different stuff.

The "link" is created by a person, who is on vacation.

I have since done more testing and found out why: for this user account (root), there's a line "export CDPATH=/data/uat/" in .profile. As a result, whenever I try "cd logs", it always searchs /data/uat (the CDPATH) first and since there is a "logs" directory there, it CDs into it (/data/uat/logs), thus the confusion.

Which OS is this?

I think some OSs (BSD) support variable symlinks.

Edit: Ok, never mind... The OP figured it out by himself.

OK, as easy as that. Good to know!

/Lakris