[2058] in Athena Bugs
ls -R
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (probe@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sat Apr 8 10:53:19 1989
From: <probe@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 89 10:53:07 EDT
To: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: Richard Basch <probe@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Systems affected:
all... including tahoe.
Bug report:
ls -R will follow symlinks to directories unless the "-l" option is also
used.
Why is this a problem? Well, if there are any subdirectories that point
to a directory higher up in the hierarchy, the user will get a recursive
listing. Someone did just that when doing an anonymous ftp to
athena-dist and decided to stop it after receiving 150k of information.
Given the way that many things are organized, it is not uncommon to have
symbolic links pointing up to another directory higher in the hierarchy
and possibly having other links pointing back down to the same
directory.
Solution:
Have "ls" only traverse directories when using -R... don't traverse links.
-Richard
