Re: Adding linux_link(2) system call, second round

[Emmanuel Dreyfus <manu%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Mon, Aug 01, 2011 at 07:20:30PM +0000, David Holland wrote:
> Sure. But what does it actually do, such that if you have a symlink it
> doesn't work to copy the symlink instead of hardlink it?

That would probably work for symlinks, since they cannot be updated.
But this would requires heavy changes in the way the code is written. 
Basically a rename on a symlink would become a readlink/symlink/unlink.
This is not really a portability patch, it is a code rewrite which would
consume more time than I can afford here. I suspect glusterfs developpers 
will have to do it if they want to support something else than Linux, but 
I have no idea when, therefore it is not wise to hold our breath on it.

llink(2) is a simple change, FreeBSD already went there with linkat(2),
and it makes everything simple. 

-- 
Emmanuel Dreyfus
manu%netbsd.org@localhost