Re: how to hard link directories?

[Tim Hart <codermsu@gmail.com>]

cp -al /pub/fedora/linux/development/13 /pub/fedora/linux/updates/13

Then, keep it up to date with something like rsync -rvulH?

Just a thought.

Tim

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 3:33 AM, Robert G. (Doc) Savage
<dsavage@peaknet.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-03-16 at 23:09 -0500, Jason M. Schindler wrote:
>> > I'd like to create a hard link between
>> >
>> >         /pub/fedora/linux/development/13/
>> >          and
>> >         /pub/fedora/linux/updates/13/
>> >
>> > such that the contents of ./updates/13 exactly match those
>> > of ./development/13 without consuming any more disk space.
>> >
>> > I've been hammering away at various combinations and permutations of
>> > 'ln' without any luck. Is ln the correct utility to use? If so, what's
>> > the syntax I should use?
>> >
>> > --Doc
>>
>> Doc,
>>
>> I don't think you can hard link directories.  Why not use a soft link?
>>
>> -Jason
>
> Jason,
>
> If you look carefully, you'll find some real relics (fossils?) scattered
> throughout most Linux and UNIX distributions. The man page for the ln
> link utility is one of these. Except for recent insertions of copyright
> statements, I don't think it has been changed since it was originally
> written the '70s. Except for a veiled warning in the -d option, there's
> nothing that explicitly says you can't hard link directories. Would that
> be so inappropriate or hard to do?
>
> You ask "Why not use a soft link?" I'm glad you asked me that question.
> Aside from its obvious visual messiness in a directory display, a soft
> link is different from a hard link in subtle ways that I'd rather not
> have to deal with in scripts. For example, if I have two hard links to a
> file they're each a separate directory entry pointing to a set of inodes
> containing the data. If I delete one, the other remains intact. If
> instead I have a file and a soft link to that same file, the soft link
> points not to the inodes containing the data but to the original
> directory entry. If I delete the actual file a broken soft link is
> created.
>
> The mount method that Nathan has suggested has merits that lie somewhere
> between these two alternatives. It doesn't offer the file deletion
> protection afforded by hard links -- when I delete a file in either
> tree, it's removed from both. ("You want that cheeseburger to go? ...
> It's GONE!") On the other hand, there's no leftover broken soft link to
> clean up.
>
> --Doc
>
>
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