Re: mount_ffs and symlinks

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 04:40:51AM +0300, Antti Kantee wrote:
> On Fri Oct 16 2009 at 17:14:14 +0200, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > currently mount_ffs will cry if the device used is a symbolic link.
> > This happens when using LVM with the userfriendly device names
> > (/dev/$VGNAME/$LVNAME). Does this warning serve any purpose?
> 
> You mean other than what is in our cvs history and GNATS?  A good tingling
> when you don't get it.

cvs log doesn't tell why the warning is needed for the device path,
nor does PR 3617. I understand why it is helpful to make it a full path,
I even understand why it is useful to resolve symbolic links. But I
don't get the purpose of the warning.

> But I don't have any suggestions on how to make it go away if you think
> it's inappropriate for LVM userfriendly names (partially because while i
> might guess what they are and why they are symlinks, i really don't know).

I guess the main reason why they are symlinks is because some thought it
was a smart idea on Linux to do. One reason to do that is to avoid
naming conflicts e.g. if you have a volume group called "tty" or "null",
so that it is always possible to access the LVs. Just guessing though.

Joerg