A Red Hat customer has registered a concern over the non-zero exit code
that results when du traverses a directory loop, i.e. a chrooted
environment.
The recent Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 errata
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2013-1652.htmlincludes a change to the
warning message received (FROM "WARNING: Circular directory structure.
This almost certainly means that you have a corrupted file system." TO "
du: mount point `/var/named/chroot/var/named' already traversed")
however there is still a non-zero exit code.
Customer states "The message may be acceptable, but it shouldn't give a
failure exit value for a situation that is not an error. In reading the
technical notes, I see the non-zero exit code was deliberate. But I
don't understand why it would be considered an error."
When I reached out to our engineering organization I received the
following response:
"Non-zero exit code was chosen by upstream - we only followed their decision.
Part of the discussion is at the
http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=11844 and second at
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2010-01/msg00011.html ...
However, I don't see explicit reasons for the non-zero exit code. If you want to ask
for the reason, you may write an emailto [email protected]."
Can anyone elaborate on why the decision to use a non-zero exit code?
Best Regards,
Jeff Kirkpatrick,
Support Relationship Manager
Strategic Customer Engagement
Red Hat Global Support Services
For Immediate Technical Support - 1.888.GO.REDHAT (888.467.3342)
