mv: don't put a symlink in its target's hardlink group - #14170
Open
sylvestre wants to merge 1 commit into
Open
Conversation
The hardlink tracker keyed the inode map on Path::metadata(), which follows symlinks, so a symlink pointing at a hardlinked sibling joined its target's group. On a cross-device directory move, if the symlink was visited first, the regular files were "preserved" by linking to the copied symlink instead of being copied, then the source was unlinked: content destroyed, exit 0, no diagnostic. GNU mv moves all entries intact. Use symlink_metadata() at the three lookup sites and only group regular files. Thanks to @mtvb for the report and the diagnosis.
sylvestre
force-pushed
the
mv-symlink-hardlink-group
branch
from
August 27, 2026 06:49
1de1203 to
9c49e02
Compare
|
GNU testsuite comparison: |
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
The hardlink tracker keyed the inode map on Path::metadata(), which follows symlinks, so a symlink pointing at a hardlinked sibling joined its target's group. On a cross-device directory move, if the symlink was visited first, the regular files were "preserved" by linking to the copied symlink instead of being copied, then the source was unlinked: content destroyed, exit 0, no diagnostic. GNU mv moves all entries intact.
Use symlink_metadata() at the three lookup sites and only group regular files.
Thanks to @mtvb for the report and the diagnosis.