Symlink and Junction copying details (from new user)

[blicher]

When symlinks or junctions are copied directly, the issue arises whether the symlink should continue to point to its old location, or to a new one relative to where it is copied. This is most critical when absolute symlinks are being copied, but can also arise with relative symlinks (win xp does not to my knowledge support relative symlinks, but I am not sure about vista or win 7).

So,

Question: I assume that FFS does not attempt to adjust the target of a symlink when it is copied to a new location?

Feature Request: This should be an option. For example, if you create a backup and the symlinks point to the old place, and you then use a file manager to look at the backup, you can easily be fooled into thinking the symlink targets exist on the backup, even if they don't (because the file manager follows the symlink back to the original source's symlink target). This person has gone to some effort to devise a variety of ways to handle this issue: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html
It would be good to incorporate something similar into FFS. (Note that his code, however, is proprietary, and not open source.)

--peter

[JDB]

Hello, I realize that the above is an old post, but I just accidentally deleted 47,000 files from the source volume when trying to free up some space on the backup volume, because a JUNCTION was translated to a SYMLINKD when it was backed up. I realize I should be more careful, and perhaps should have disabled copying links in the first place. Regardless, I think it's erroneous to create symbolic links in a backup volume that point back to the original data. When the user eventually recycles the backup image, there is a huge risk of wiping out the source, if the deletion is not performed properly. (for example, deleting while traversing the filesystem from the "bottom-up" would erase all of the files from the source instead of simply deleting the link.)

Instead of translating JUNCTIONs to SYMLINKDs, could there be an option to create Shortcuts instead? Or perhaps dummy place-holders that could be translated back into JUNCTIONs if the data ever needs to be restored?

A pop-up dialog warning of pitfalls when setting the option to Include Symbolic Links would also help dummies like me to avoid the issue.

-JDB

[JDB]

FYI, My 47,000 files were in fact properly backed up using FFS so I was able to recover! :-)