Symbolic links are never removed from /tmp with TMPTIME>0

[Ken Sharp]

With TMPTIME set to anything other than 0 in /etc/default/rcS the init script has to find files to remove rather than simply wiping /tmp. This fails to remove symbolic links.

lrwxrwxrwx 1 1001 1001 12 Mar 20 02:01 test2.jpg -> download.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 1001 1001 3 Mar 20 02:04 beh -> meh

$ file beh
beh: broken symbolic link to `meh'
$ file test2.jpg
test2.jpg: broken symbolic link to `download.jpg'

My TMPTIME is set to 3 but these two files are well over a month old.

The script uses find but this seems to find the files no problem:

$ find . ! -type d 2>&- | egrep "beh|test2"
./beh
./test2.jpg

Tests using "find . ! -type d -delete" show "find" removing symbolic links both working and broken.

My syslog does show this during boot:

kernel: [ 723.500519] type=1302 audit(1429024710.712:73): item=0 name="/tmp/beh" inode=221577 dev=08:05 mode=0120777 ouid=1001 ogid=1001 rdev=00:00 nametype=NORMAL

This seems to be updating the atime, and the atime is used in the expression:

TEXPR="-mtime +${TMPTIME} -ctime +${TMPTIME} -atime +${TMPTIME}"

The result being that symbolic links will, apparently, never be removed.

I have no idea what is updating the atime for these symbolic links or why it is being audited. It's nothing I have intentionally set up on this system. It may be that the script is not at fault here but whatever package is updating the atime on these files.

A temporary solution would be to have a separate expression just for symbolic links ignoring the atime, but this may not be what a user wants. However: I can think of no good reason why anyone would need a symbolic link hanging around /tmp for longer than the TMPTIME.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: initscripts 2.88dsf-13.10ubuntu11.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-26.45~precise1-generic 3.11.10.12
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-26-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.8
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Apr 14 16:46:52 2015
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: sysvinit
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2014-12-07 (128 days ago)