On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 5:01 PM, don bailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> But Linux use symlinks. Is there a way to make symlinks >> on the Plan 9 filesystem and make them accessible with NFS? >> > > The kernel probably doesn't care. Symlinks are just files > whose contents are another file's path. As long as the kernel > knows how to interpret it I'm sure it'd be fine. Look at the > inverse: Plan 9 on Linux simply sees a Linux symlink as what > ever the symlink points to. For example, in your 9vx tree > do: `ln -s sparc64 v9` and run 9vx.Linux. >
you would think it would work that way. You would think that the server, upon hitting a symlink, would just indirect through it and all would be well. And it's true, the kernel doesn't care. But userspace does. (http://www.linuxinsight.com/ols2006_why_userspace_sucks_or_101_really_dumb_things_your_app_shouldnt_do.html) is really right. When I first got v9fs working, 1998, I tried mounting file systems over 9p. What a mess. Things just broke in weird ways. There is code that really wants a symlink to be there and readable. I can't even recall all the places, but they're there. And things break if you mount and don't have symlinks. Which is why I put readlink etc. in my v9fs, and why the .U version is in today's linux kernels. thanks ron
