Bug 6943

Summary: hardlinking directories isn't permitted
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Pekka Savola <pekkas>
Component: fileutilsAssignee: Bernhard Rosenkraenzer <bero>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.1   
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 1999-11-12 18:30:11 UTC Type: ---
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Description Pekka Savola 1999-11-12 07:24:34 UTC 
Hardlinking directories isn't permitted.  You get:

[root@here] ln --directory DIR1 DIR2
ln: cannot create hard link `DIR2' to `DIR1': Operation not permitted

Even though I'm root.

ln --help suggests that it should be possible:
----
  -d, -F, --directory         hard link directories (super-user only)
----

I tried is on RH 5.1 and 6.1+rawhide:
fileutils-3.16-9
fileutils-4.0-8
Comment 1 Bernhard Rosenkraenzer 1999-11-12 18:30:59 UTC 
hardlinking directories is not possible with every filesystem (most filesystems
don't support this actually).
The ext2 filesystem definitely doesn't do hardlinked directories.
What do you need them for?