[hylafax-users] Debian Machine Hardlink /etc/hylafax to /var/spool/hylafax/etc?

[Raimund Sacherer <rs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I know it's a bit offtopic as it's not a cry for help about hylafax, but i'd appreciate some feedback!

I had a hardtime figuring out some hylafax problems and i stumbled upon what appears to be a hardlink from the directory /etc/hylafax to /var/spool/hylafax/etc?

I thought it was impossible to hardlink directories? Or is it only impossible for users to hardlink directories? I toyed around with something similiar to apples timemachine in gnome (can't remember the name) which uses an rsync like approach with linking files, but it created all directories because of the problem not being able to create hardlinks to directories. So I lost lot's of inodes after the system was full (3 month of 10 minute copies). 

So, I am really baffled that, after all, on my system /etc/hylafax:

YYY@XXX:~$ stat /etc/hylafax

  File: «/etc/hylafax»

  Size: 4096            Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   directorio

Device: 802h/2050d      Inode: 977900      Links: 4

Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)

Access: 2010-02-18 14:12:20.000000000 +0100

Modify: 2010-02-18 13:50:50.000000000 +0100

Change: 2010-02-18 13:50:50.000000000 +0100

Is in fact a hardlink to /var/spool/hylafax/etc:

YYY@XXX:~$ stat /var/spool/hylafax/etc

  File: «/var/spool/hylafax/etc»

  Size: 4096            Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   directorio

Device: 802h/2050d      Inode: 977900      Links: 4

Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)

Access: 2010-02-18 14:12:20.000000000 +0100

Modify: 2010-02-18 13:50:50.000000000 +0100

Change: 2010-02-18 13:50:50.000000000 +0100

You see, same device, same Inode and 4 Links ... 

So how is this possible? And why can't other software like rsync take advantage of this?

Thanks and best regards

Ray

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