[Go-essp-tech] [esg-node-dev] Re: Reasoning for the use of symbolic links in drslib

[V. Balaji]

Estanislao Gonzalez writes:

> I meant that as hard links are really like normal files, the will get 
> ingested multiple times when stored into tape. Tools can therefore not rely 
> on "detecting" them as they would with soft-links. [I'm told that our tape 
> storage cannot store links, so we wouldn't benefit from this advantage of 
> soft-links)

I'm not sure this is true as a general statement. The tape software we
use here (pDMF) I'm pretty sure handles hard links correctly, i.e no
double storage. A cursory look at documentation for HPSS suggests
the same there. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Symlinks (soft) are of course a different story, since they can point
to anything, including non-existent filesystems. Doing 'man rsync' shows
you the rich software palette needed to support symlinks:-), so I'm not
surprised your tape guys stayed away.
-- 

V. Balaji                               Office:  +1-609-452-6516
Head, Modeling Systems Group, GFDL      Home:    +1-212-253-6662
Princeton University                    Email: v.balaji at noaa.gov