Re: security implications (was Re: Proposal: restrict link(2))

Ray Auchterlounie (rda@kythera.demon.co.uk)
Sun, 22 Dec 1996 12:18:07 GMT

In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.961217102005.23370A-100000@dross>
Dave Cole <dave@edipost.auspost.com.au> wrote:
[...]
>It turns out that Distiller was creating a file in /tmp for every page
>processed. We had about 100,000 zero length files in /tmp. Under SunOS,
>directories never shrink, so we had to remake the file system to get back
>normal performance.
[...]
>I have not bothered to check if ext2fs shrinks directories, maybe this
>"technique" would work on Linux too.

Unless it's been changed recently, ext2fs doesn't shrink directories.

I guess this is one reason for "files" quotas :)

You can recover the space by deleting the directory (probably not on
SunOS if /tmp is the root of tmpfs).

ray

-- 
Ray Auchterlounie                     <rda@kythera.demon.co.uk>
         "Forty Two! Is that all you've got to show for 
          seven and a half million years' work?"