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A fun exercise in re the design quality of the Linux kernel: How many lines of code do you think was the diff to add "-o nosymfollow" (ignore symlinks) as a mount option? (git.kernel.org)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by mozz@mbin.grits.dev to c/programming@beehaw.org

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Think of a similar scope of change to a large codebase you're familiar with, for frame of reference.

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[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

You have misunderstood. No, it wasn't an existing thing. This is the code that implements it. That's the point.

The change to fs/namei.c is the code to handle not following symlinks; the rest is some necessary code to create the option and expose it to userland.

(Edit: Rereading I do see a little better what you were saying - I actually looked it up and the code that “originally” implemented not following symlinks, that you’re saying we're now adding an or statement to activate, was 2 lines to expose the option, 2 lines of white space, and 2 lines to implement not following symlinks).