Very Computer

by **Junzheng Ma** » Wed, 29 Sep 1999 04:00:00

Hi all,

I created a symbol link directory and when I get into it, I always get
the following error message:

backup: Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal
exceeds MAXSYMLINKS.

where "backup" is the name of the link target, it's a directory.

Can anyone help me to overcome this?

Thanks in advance!

by **Mark Mentova** » Wed, 29 Sep 1999 04:00:00

Junzheng Man wrote in comp.unix.solaris:

Quote:>I created a symbol link directory and when I get into it, I always get
>the following error message:

>backup: Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal
>exceeds MAXSYMLINKS.

>where "backup" is the name of the link target, it's a directory.

>Can anyone help me to overcome this?

It means that your symbolic link could not be resolved to a
non-symbolic link (a real file or directory) after trying to follow
MAXSYMLINKS links, so it gave up. (MAXSYMLINKS is defined in
sys/param.h.)

This usually means that you've got an endless loop of symbolic links.
For example, if your symbolic link "backup" points back to itself (if
the "ls -l" entry looks something like below), then the system will
keep trying to follow the link, but it will keep leading back to the
same place, hence the loop.

lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 6 Sep 28 12:00 backup -> backup

The solution is to fix your links so that they don't give yield
infinite loops when resolving.

Read more about symbolic links with "man ln" - note that the default
behavior of ln is to create hard links, for the purposes of this topic,
you may ignore that information and pay attention only to symbolic
links (the -s argument to ln).

-MM

by **Andrew Gabri** » Wed, 29 Sep 1999 04:00:00

Quote:>Hi all,

>I created a symbol link directory and when I get into it, I always get
>the following error message:

>backup: Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal
>exceeds MAXSYMLINKS.

>where "backup" is the name of the link target, it's a directory.

>Can anyone help me to overcome this?

It probably points to itself.

--
Andrew Gabriel
Consultant Software Engineer

by **Casper H.S. Dik - Network Security Engine** » Thu, 30 Sep 1999 04:00:00

[[ PLEASE DON'T SEND ME EMAIL COPIES OF POSTINGS ]]

>Hi all,
>I created a symbol link directory and when I get into it, I always get
>the following error message:
>backup: Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal
>exceeds MAXSYMLINKS.
>where "backup" is the name of the link target, it's a directory.

You've created a loop, most likely (the error is returned when more than
20 symbolic links need to be resolved when expanding a pathname).

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

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