Postfix question

[Rick Stevens]

Rick Stevens wrote:
> Bob McClure Jr wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Sep 30, 2004 at 11:32:33AM -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
>>
>>> Waldher, Travis R wrote:
>>>
>>>> They aren't hard links, editing one, doesn't show up as a change in the
>>>> other.
>>>>
>>>> So the question becomes, does postfix modify in anyway, those files
>>>> under postfix/etc.  
>>>
>>>
>>> No, it doesn't modify the files, but remember that postfix runs in a
>>> chrooted environment.  Links (be they symbolic or hard) can't back up
>>> beyond what the chroot directory is, so postfix won't be able to see the
>>> targets of the links. That's why it needs local copies and not links
>>> to the system files.
>>
>>
>>
>> Umm, I disagree about hard links.  In the chrooted environment,
>> /etc/passwd contains the same inode that /etc/passwd does in the real
>> world.  So changes made to it (as long as the inode doesn't change) in
>> the real world will be seen in the chroot environment.  But as I
>> mentioned earlier you couldn't hard-link them anyway if they are on
>> separate filesystems.  I normally put /var/spool on a different FS on
>> my server installations.

Reposting my answer (hit SEND too soon):

You're right about the hard links.  They will work in a chroot, but hard
links can't span filesystems for that exact reason--shared inodes.

Unless you set up a weird system where /etc and /var are on the same
filesystem (a practice I STRONGLY disagree with), hard links won't work.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
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