[PATCH 0/7] Permit filesystem local caching and NFS superblock sharing [try #13]

[David Howells]

Ian Kent <raven at themaw.net> wrote:

> > Okay, I suppose.  But that still doesn't seem to deal with the case of
> > creating a directory on the client that then overlays a symlink on the
> > server that you can't yet access.
> 
> We're largely performing user space actions at this point.
> Wouldn't the subsequent call to mount(8) catch that?

Not if you've already caused the NFS filesystem to create a "dummy" dentry
that's a directory because you couldn't see that what that name corresponds to
on the server is actually a symlink.

> > You may also get ENOENT because you stat a symlink, though you'll get EEXIST
> > from mkdir, even if there's nothing at the far end.
> 
> Don't think this is something I need to care about either.
> I can't mount on a symlink so the error return would be the correct way
> to deal with it.

But you might have to transit a symlink to reach the mountpoint.

David