On Wed, 22 May 1996, Dan Cross wrote: > I was under the impression that find(1) didn't follow symbolic links? > Thus, one wouldn't ``find'' /etc/passwd if there was a link to /etc > from somewhere in /tmp. > > Please don't tell me that Linux (or, more precisely, GNU) broke this. :-) No, the problem is that while find won't follow a symbolic link, it's possible make a really really really long path to a file, then while that path is being followed by find, you can rename the top-level directory and just leave a symbolic link for the -exec command. In this case, rm. Ie, create a real path of a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/etc/passwd Then create a path of b/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/a/etc where etc is actually a link to /etc/, then after find starts down a/a/a/a/, rename a to c, and b to a. Now after the find command completes processing of passwd, rm will pick up on the new a (formerly b) path. --- Mike Kienenberger Arctic Region Supercomputing Center Systems Analyst (907) 474-6842 mkienenb@arsc.edu http://www.arsc.edu