Symlinks or no Symlinks (was: Re: W32/Bagle-Zip)

[Julian Field]

At 23:03 04/03/2004, you wrote:
>Julian Field wrote:
> >
> > You almost certainly have your "Incoming Work Directory" set wrong. The
> > path set in there must be the absolute path to the directory, not a path
> > that follows any links. Yours should be set to
> > /home/spool/MailScanner/incoming
> > and I expect you have something like
> > /var/spool/MailScanner/incoming.
> >
>
>I see you say that every so often, and I wonder what the deal is on this
>one.
>
>For one, I use symlinks to my MailScanner work area because I have to
>(due to some local configuration issues), and yet I have no problems
>with doing so.  I don't see any leaks, errors, etc.  MailScanner seems
>to actually function fine with that situation.
>
>
>So, why must it be the absolute path?  What is it that you think will
>break/happen if it's not the absolute path?  And, since it's perl, and
>perl can break open symlinks to see where they go, why not have some
>routine find the real path if it's that important, allowing the runtime
>environment to be absolute while also allowing the system administration
>model to be flexible?

The output of some virus scanners (notably McAfee for an example) contains
the full path to the files it scanned, not just the relative path from
where you are doing the scan. The path the generate often includes the real
full path not just what the shell considers to be the current directory.

So to match it in the output, MailScanner has to know the absolute path it
is looking for.

>(and, are there likely to be problems that I'm just not seeing in my
>results? invisible gotchas and such?  it really seems like "it works
>even though Julian says it wont", which DOES make me wonder about future
>support for it, but for now it works)

It matters for some virus scanners and not others.
--
Julian Field
www.MailScanner.info
MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support

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