Tim wrote:
Tim:
Does anything use hard links? I've cloned a drive using the cp command
(with appropriate parameter), and not noticed any problems.
James Wilkinson:
Something like
find / -noleaf -type f -links +2 -ls 2>/dev/null
will give you an answer for you system, but in general:
Stuff like zcat, gunzip, and gzip are the same binary hardlinked under
the same name. It uses (either switches or) the command name to work out
what it's supposed to do.
I notice zcat is a link, but gzip and gunzip *appear* to be standalone
files:
$ ll /usr/bin/bzcat
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Oct 18 10:26 /usr/bin/bzcat -> bzip2
$ ll /bin/gzip
-rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 61424 May 3 2005 /bin/gzip
$ ll /usr/bin/gzip
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Oct 18 10:27 /usr/bin/gzip -> ../../bin/gzip
$ ll /bin/gunzip
-rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 61424 May 3 2005 /bin/gunzip
$ ll /usr/bin/gunzip
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Oct 18 10:26 /usr/bin/gunzip -> ../../bin/gunzip
I can't recall a method for telling apart standalone or hard linked files.
Use the "-i" option of "ls" to list their inode numbers. Same inode on
the filesystem = same file.
$ ls -li /bin/*zip
79882 -rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 61424 May 3 2005 /bin/gunzip
79882 -rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 61424 May 3 2005 /bin/gzip
Hence these two are hardlinked together.
Would file linking stuff-ups *might* get fixed the next time I update
the packages that provides them?
Probably.
Paul.
