[OpenAFS-devel] Same problem in a different place.

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Nickolai Zeldovich <kolya@MIT.EDU> writes:

> Yeah, I think you're right..  Last time someone suggested that the
> finder won't try to do the open(dir/.somefile) if the file is a
> symlink with the sticky bit set (or the containing directory has
> the sticky bit set, I can't quite recall),

That was probably me, and your memory is good.

The OS X Finder checks to see if an item is a symlink with the sticky
bit set; if so, it does not stat() it, never mind opening anything
below it.  I am absolutely certain I read this in Apple's
documentation for OS X, but I do not remember exactly where.  Doing a
quick search, the closest reference I found is for similar behavior on
Openstep/Nextstep:

  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-list/1999-October/msg00015.html

On the native OS X file systems, the way you make a symlink with the
sticky bit set is to set the sticky bit on the containing directory,
because symlinks on Darwin inherit their permissions from the
containing directory.  At least, that is how it worked when I tried it
several months ago.  I presume the AFS client could set the symlink
bits independently of the bits on the directory.

 - Pat