#981625 coreutils: ln -svf fails on nfs share if symbolic link already exists

Package:
coreutils
Source:
coreutils
Description:
GNU core utilities
Submitter:
cedric borgese
Date:
2021-02-02 14:51:04 UTC
Severity:
normal
#981625#5
Date:
2021-02-02 09:46:29 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,
trying to update a symbolic link from a nfs share silently fails.
if the symbolic link /some/nfs/share/tmp already exists, the command
ln -sv /tmp /some/nfs/share/tmp
fails as expected with an error message, but the command
ln -svf /tmp /some/nfs/share/tmp
fails and print an output as if the link was succesfully updated

it works as expecteed on a local mounted partition.
#981625#10
Date:
2021-02-02 13:27:38 UTC
From:
To:
I can't duplicate on nfs. I'd guess there's something on the NFS server
preventing the command from succeeding but I can't be more specific
without more information. What should actually be happening is that ln
makes an attempt to create the symlink, that fails, then it makes the
link with a random name and renames it into place. If you run your
command with strace you can see the exact system calls.
#981625#15
Date:
2021-02-02 14:46:32 UTC
From:
To:
pushing the investigation, it seems to only be an error on my side.
I used to do this on file, but when doing it on a directory, it creates a
link inside the linked directory instead of updating the current link.
Sorry about that, the main issue can be closed for me.

however, the behavior is a bit confusing, without the f option, ln fail
saying that the destination file exists, and with it, it doesn't overwrite
ii but instead create a new link inside it.
Either the destination is the link that should be updated, and it is ok to
fail without -f but it should be updated with -f
either the destination is a new link inside the directory and it can be
created without -f


Le mar. 2 févr. 2021 à 14:27, Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> a écrit :