File Systems Supporting Hard Directory Binding

Question

Somebody knows? preferable with linux implementation?

alternatively, does anyone know how much effort it will take to add it to any open source implementation? (I mean: maybe this is enough to change the if statement, maybe I need to carefully go through all the tests for adding an fs implementation, do you have this concept?).

thanks....

Answer 1

HFS + resolves hard directory links in OSX 10.5. Only TimeMachine can create them with OSX 10.6, and HFS + does some health checks so that they do not enter cycles.

However, Linux will not read . In addition to file systems, this can be enforced at the VFS level. Even if there are no loops, some user-space tools rely on the lack of hard links to directories (for example, GNU search optimization, which allows you to skip many directories, it can be disabled using -noleaf).

Answer 2

Technically, nothing is stopping you from opening / dev / sda with a hex editor and creating it. However, everything else on your system will fall apart if you do.

The best explanation I could find is a quote from jta :

User hard links to directories are forbidden because they violate the directional structure of the acyclic graph file system (which is ASSERT in Unixiana, roughly), and because they confuse the hell out of file-tree-walkers (the term Multicians are recognized, but Unix geeks, maybe problems too.