[buug] ln -sf bug

Chris Waters xtifr at debian.org
Thu Aug 5 19:43:40 PDT 2004


On Thu, Aug 05, 2004 at 05:23:03PM -0700, johnd wrote:

> root at stang:/usr/src# ls -l
> total 34276
> lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           11 Apr 28 17:16 linux -> linux-2.6.5/
[...]
> root at stang:/usr/src# ln -sf linux-2.6.7 linux
> root at stang:/usr/src# ls -l
> total 34276
> lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           11 Apr 28 17:16 linux -> linux-2.6.5/
[...]

That definitely looks like an unexpected result.  I note that the time
stamp didn't change. It appears as if the command is simply failing.
Why, I don't know.  Does "rm linux" work?

If this is a networked drive, then you may simply lack permission to
modify the directory.  If it's local, but it's an ext2/3 volume, then
you may have gotten the extended file attributes set somehow (see
lsattr and chattr).  Other file systems may have "bonus" features ilke
that, such as Access Control Lists (ACLs).  These days, root is only
all-powerful for sufficiently small values of "all-powerful".

If none of those suggestions prove useful or informative, you might
want to start looking for signs of either, A) a breakin, or B) disk
corruption.  In fact, even if the suggestions do prove useful, they
may still indicate possible corruption.  I've had a failing drive
spontaneously set random ext2 attribute bits on me in the past.

-- 
Chris Waters           |  Pneumonoultra-        osis is too long
xtifr at debian.org       |  microscopicsilico-    to fit into a single
or xtifr at speakeasy.net |  volcaniconi-          standalone haiku



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