Recursive symlinks not detected with -f -R (-r)

[Peter Parkkali]

Binary package hint: genisoimage

Combining the -f (follow symlinks) and -R or (-r) (use Rock Ridge) makes genisoimage loop on recursive symlinks.

Below are the minimal steps to reproduce this, but it naturally happens with more complex symlink loops too.

pfp@suoruumis:~$ mkdir /tmp/test
pfp@suoruumis:~$ cd /tmp/test
pfp@suoruumis:/tmp/test$ echo foobar > foo.bar
pfp@suoruumis:/tmp/test$ ln -s . loop
pfp@suoruumis:/tmp/test$ ls -l
total 4,0K
-rw-r--r-- 1 pfp pfp 7 2008-02-02 15:19 foo.bar
lrwxrwxrwx 1 pfp pfp 1 2008-02-02 15:19 loop -> ./
pfp@suoruumis:/tmp/test$
pfp@suoruumis:/tmp/test$ genisoimage -f -R --print-size .
Warning: -follow-links does not always work correctly; be careful.
I: -input-charset not specified, using utf-8 (detected in locale settings)
genisoimage: Too many levels of symbolic links. File ./loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop/loop is not readable - ignoring
Using LOOP000 for ./rr_moved/loop (loop)
Using LOOP001 for ./rr_moved/loop (loop)
Using LOOP002 for ./rr_moved/loop (loop)
Using LOOP003 for ./rr_moved/loop (loop)
Using LOOP004 for ./rr_moved/loop (loop)
Total extents scheduled to be written = 217
217
pfp@suoruumis:/tmp/test$

[Schily (schilling-fokus)]

I see no sense in this kind of usage....

But please note: genisoimage is a fork from a 3 year old mkisofs version it still has bugs that have
been fixed long ago in the official software....

If you _really_ believe that this usage makes sense, just call:

mkisofs -f -R -print-size -find .

Note that you need a recent mkisofs e.g. from ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/alpha/

The built in libfind correctly handles loops created wirth hard linked directories
which is what you did emulate in your case.