Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-security (226 mails)

[Ingo Boernig <ingo@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

pelibali wrote:
> Hi,

> I would have another question in (not so tight) relation to this
> topic. While checking files/folders on my SUSE 9.1 system, I realized,
> that many times happens, that there are files with the same size and
> same md5sum and they are really two separated files. I mean named
> differently, but stored still in the same folder. Is there a security
> reason or in fact why is this method better and not just link one to
> another as e.g. the case is for python-related stuff:
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 5812 2005-02-05 17:23 /usr/bin/python2.3
> lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    9 2005-03-19 23:29 /usr/bin/python ->
> python2.3

This is a softlink. -> man ln (option -s)

> I would say, it's OK, even that the above files are tiny. But there
> are several others as:
>
> package 'automake'
> -rwxr-xr-x  2 root root 220546 2004-11-15 13:04 /usr/bin/automake-1.9
> -rwxr-xr-x  2 root root 220546 2004-11-15 13:04 /usr/bin/automake
> or
> -rwxr-xr-x  2 root root 20632 2004-11-15 13:04 /usr/bin/aclocal-1.9
> -rwxr-xr-x  2 root root 20632 2004-11-15 13:04 /usr/bin/aclocal

These are hardlinks. Also: man ln

> And additionally for the following two pairs at least 2Mb could be
> saved, because they are _big_:
>
> package 'perl'
>   /usr/bin/perl
>   /usr/bin/perl5.8.3
>
>   /usr/bin/sperl5.8.3
>   /usr/bin/suidperl
;) hardlinks too

> So the brief question is, why is it better to keep two copies of
> completely same file?

It _is_ the same file ;) Try to use "ls -i" (This shows the inode 
number, which shows that these files are identical and only once on the 
disk ;)

> Thank you and have a nice weekend,
> Pelibali
Read a good book about Linux/UNIX administration. You will find some 
useful and interesting things! ;))

Cheers,
Ingo
--
Ingo Börnig <ingo at boernig.de>        /"\
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