Question about broken link files?

[Michael D. Setzer II]

Just upgraded my notebook to sdd drive and then did dnf 
update to Fedora 33.

Ran the following command in / to see what it finds.
find . -xtype l >/badlinks

Summary of results of broken links by top directory 
/etc 15
/home 17
/proc 170
/root 2
/run 145
/usr 325
674

Not an awful lot, but wonder if they should be fixed or 
just left alone? 
One was projectM have a link to some fonts, but the fonts 
and the directory they are suppose to be in don't exist.
The there are a number K50netconsole files in /etc
/proc and /run not sure of??
/home seem to be mostly files in .wine

Thanks..

+------------------------------------------------------------+
 Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor 
(Retired)     
 mailto:[e-mail]                            
 mailto:[e-mail]
 Guam - Where America's Day Begins                        
 G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer 
 http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
+------------------------------------------------------------+

[Qiyu Yan]

在 2021-05-02星期日的 18:05 +1000，Michael D. Setzer II via users写道：
> Just upgraded my notebook to sdd drive and then did dnf 
> update to Fedora 33.
>
> Ran the following command in / to see what it finds.
> find . -xtype l >/badlinks
>
> Summary of results of broken links by top directory 
> /etc 15
> /home 17
> /proc 170
> /root 2
> /run 145
> /usr 325
> 674
>
> Not an awful lot, but wonder if they should be fixed or 
> just left alone? 
> One was projectM have a link to some fonts, but the fonts 
> and the directory they are suppose to be in don't exist.

Maybe those fonts will can be installed in another package, or moved
due to licensing problems.
> The there are a number K50netconsole files in /etc

I did not see such file in my system.
> /proc and /run not sure of??

If its not causing problems, I think those dangling links should not be
a problem.

For example, podman-docker is supposed to set up a symlink:
/run/docker.sock -> /run/podman/podman.sock
to let programs hardcoded to talk to docker socket to communicate with
podman daemon. While when podman is not running, the symlink becomes
dangling.

Or symlink is used for other reasons, for example systemd creates 
/run/systemd/units/invocation:<unit name> which points to its
invocation id.
> /home seem to be mostly files in .wine
>
> Thanks..
>
> +------------------------------------------------------------+
>  Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor 
> (Retired)     
>  mailto:[e-mail]                            
>  mailto:[e-mail]
>  Guam - Where America's Day Begins                        
>  G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer 
>  http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
> +------------------------------------------------------------+

[Ed Greshko]

On 02/05/2021 16:05, Michael D. Setzer II via users wrote:
> Just upgraded my notebook to sdd drive and then did dnf
> update to Fedora 33.
>
> Ran the following command in / to see what it finds.
> find . -xtype l >/badlinks
>
> Summary of results of broken links by top directory
> /etc 15
> /home 17
> /proc 170
> /root 2
> /run 145
> /usr 325
> 674
>
> Not an awful lot, but wonder if they should be fixed or
> just left alone?
> One was projectM have a link to some fonts, but the fonts
> and the directory they are suppose to be in don't exist.
> The there are a number K50netconsole files in /etc
> /proc and /run not sure of??
> /home seem to be mostly files in .wine

I'm an "Old School Hardware Engineer".  Our mantra has always been:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

Meaning, unless it is proven to be causing trouble, leave it alone. :-)

[Michael D. Setzer II]

On 2 May 2021 at 17:12, Qiyu Yan wrote:

Subject:	Re: Question about broken link files?
From:	Qiyu Yan 
To:	Community support for Fedora users 
Date sent:	Sun, 02 May 2021 17:12:41 +0800
Send reply to:	Community support for Fedora users
> 在 2021-05-02星期日的 18:05 +1000，Michael D. Setzer II via users写道：
> > Just upgraded my notebook to sdd drive and then did dnf 
> > update to Fedora 33.
> >
> > Ran the following command in / to see what it finds.
> > find . -xtype l >/badlinks
> >
> > Summary of results of broken links by top directory 
> > /etc 15
> > /home 17
> > /proc 170
> > /root 2
> > /run 145
> > /usr 325
> > 674
> >
> > Not an awful lot, but wonder if they should be fixed or 
> > just left alone? 
> > One was projectM have a link to some fonts, but the fonts 
> > and the directory they are suppose to be in don't exist.
>
> Maybe those fonts will can be installed in another package, or moved
> due to licensing problems.
> > The there are a number K50netconsole files in /etc
>
> I did not see such file in my system.
> > /proc and /run not sure of??

Thanks assumed there was probable something more to 
those in the /proc and /run. But about half are in /usr and 
K50netconsole are in all the rc.d directories.

The projectM ones
ls -l /usr/share/projectM/fonts/*.ttf
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 33 Feb 22 08:30
/usr/share/projectM/fonts/VeraMono.ttf -> /usr/share/fonts/TTF/VeraMono.ttf
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 29 Feb 22 08:30 /usr/share/projectM/fonts/Vera.ttf -> 
/usr/share/fonts/TTF/Vera.ttf

Not only the two fonts don't exist, but neither does the 
TTF directory. Assume at some time the fonts and 
directory did exist, but a dnf whatprovides finds no 
reference.

Thanks for the quick responses, guess not worth really 
working at. Had also noticed that some links in /lib64 
have ../../lib64?? Assume that is because original files 
were in different  directories, but now directors are sym 
links to others.

I started on a 1963 IBM 1130 with 4K ram and punched 
cards and 5M disk.. So, had to be very clean on what you 
had.
> If its not causing problems, I think those dangling links should not be
> a problem.
>
> For example, podman-docker is supposed to set up a symlink:
> /run/docker.sock -> /run/podman/podman.sock
> to let programs hardcoded to talk to docker socket to communicate with
> podman daemon. While when podman is not running, the symlink becomes
> dangling.
>
> Or symlink is used for other reasons, for example systemd creates 
> /run/systemd/units/invocation:<unit name> which points to its
> invocation id.
> > /home seem to be mostly files in .wine
> >
> > Thanks..
> >
> > +------------------------------------------------------------+
> >  Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor 
> > (Retired)     
> >  mailto:[e-mail]                            
> >  mailto:[e-mail]
> >  Guam - Where America's Day Begins                        
> >  G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer 
> >  http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
> > +------------------------------------------------------------+
>
> -- 
> Qiyu Yan
> GPG keyid: 0x4FC914F065F2DF12
> About: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Yanqiyu

[Tim]

On Sun, 2021-05-02 at 18:05 +1000, Michael D. Setzer II via users
wrote:
> Ran the following command in / to see what it finds.
> find . -xtype l >/badlinks
>
> Summary of results of broken links by top directory 
> /etc 15
> /home 17
> /proc 170
> /root 2
> /run 145
> /usr 325
> 674
>
> Not an awful lot, but wonder if they should be fixed or 
> just left alone?

On a whim, I tried your command on my CentOS 7 (clean install) system,
only these five lines turned up:

find: ‘./proc/1853/task/1853/fd/5’: No such file or directory
 find: ‘./proc/1853/task/1853/fdinfo/5’: No such file or directory
 find: ‘./proc/1853/fd/6’: No such file or directory
 find: ‘./proc/1853/fdinfo/6’: No such file or directory
 find: ‘./run/user/1000/gvfs’: Permission denied

So, faring better than your discovery.

There is no /proc/1853 anything.  So was that a broken link pointing to
there, or was it finding something from there, that's now disappeared?

If I do (still as the root user):  ll /run/user/1000/

ls: cannot access /run/user/1000/gvfs: Permission denied
 total 0
 drwx------. 2 tim tim  60 May  2 21:25 dconf
 d?????????? ? ?   ?     ?            ? gvfs
 drwx------. 2 tim tim 100 May  2 16:25 keyring
 drwx------. 2 tim tim  80 May  2 16:25 pulse

Not sure if root oughtn't to be able to see gvfs, or that's just some
weird anomaly about how virtual file systems work.

Then, as myself, doing:  ll /run/user/1000/

total 0
 drwx------. 2 tim tim  60 May  2 21:29 dconf
 dr-x------. 2 tim tim   0 May  2 16:25 gvfs
 drwx------. 2 tim tim 100 May  2 16:25 keyring
 drwx------. 2 tim tim  80 May  2 16:25 pulse

I thought root couldn't be stopped from viewing user's files.

[Ed Greshko]

On 02/05/2021 20:05, Tim via users wrote:
> There is no /proc/1853 anything.  So was that a broken link pointing to
> there, or was it finding something from there, that's now disappeared?

Kinda weird to be searching for stuff in /proc which is so dynamic.

I bet if you ran that same command repeatedly you find the number increase by a few.
And, if you're able to capture it, you'd find the number was associated with the PID
of the find command.

[Michael D. Setzer II]

On 2 May 2021 at 21:35, Tim via users wrote:

Subject:        	Re: Question about broken link files?
To:             	[e-mail]
Date sent:      	Sun, 02 May 2021 21:35:23 +0930
Send reply to:  	Community support for Fedora 
users 
From:           	Tim via users 

Copies to:      	Tim
> On Sun, 2021-05-02 at 18:05 +1000, Michael D. Setzer II via users
> wrote:
> > Ran the following command in / to see what it finds.
> > find . -xtype l >/badlinks
> >
> > Summary of results of broken links by top directory 
> > /etc 15
> > /home 17
> > /proc 170
> > /root 2
> > /run 145
> > /usr 325
> > 674
> >
> > Not an awful lot, but wonder if they should be fixed or 
> > just left alone?
>
> On a whim, I tried your command on my CentOS 7 (clean install) system,
> only these five lines turned up:
>
> find: ‘./proc/1853/task/1853/fd/5’: No such file or directory
>  find: ‘./proc/1853/task/1853/fdinfo/5’: No such file or directory
>  find: ‘./proc/1853/fd/6’: No such file or directory
>  find: ‘./proc/1853/fdinfo/6’: No such file or directory
>  find: ‘./run/user/1000/gvfs’: Permission denied
>
> So, faring better than your discovery.

Yes, there are some messages like that that pop up since 
the fin command can't access things. Think those are sent 
to stderr

find . -xtype l >badlinks 2>ERR

Sends the stderr output to ERR file.

Modified script to filter out /proc and /run
find . -xtype l >/badlinks 2>ERR
grep -v '/proc|/run' </badlinks >/badlinks-clean

Result
wc -l badlinks*
  672 badlinks
  359 badlinks-clean

Don't know what the projectM is, but since it has links to 
./usr/share/projectM/fonts/Vera.ttf
./usr/share/projectM/fonts/VeraMono.ttf
Must assume it thinks they should be there?
The Vera.ttf is on my system in 
./usr/share/fonts/bitstream-vera-sans-fonts/Vera.ttf
But not the VeraMono.ttf. Did find other packages that do 
have that font? 
So, not clear if in this case projectM expected the fonts to 
be where it puts the links to, or it whatever did create 
that directory and fonts no longer exists in Fedora, and 
they just didn't upate it? Don't know why I looked at that 
one. Near the end of the /usr ones??
> There is no /proc/1853 anything.  So was that a broken link pointing to
> there, or was it finding something from there, that's now disappeared?
>
> If I do (still as the root user):  ll /run/user/1000/
>
> ls: cannot access /run/user/1000/gvfs: Permission denied
>  total 0
>  drwx------. 2 tim tim  60 May  2 21:25 dconf
>  d?????????? ? ?   ?     ?            ? gvfs
>  drwx------. 2 tim tim 100 May  2 16:25 keyring
>  drwx------. 2 tim tim  80 May  2 16:25 pulse
>
> Not sure if root oughtn't to be able to see gvfs, or that's just some
> weird anomaly about how virtual file systems work.
>
> Then, as myself, doing:  ll /run/user/1000/
>
> total 0
>  drwx------. 2 tim tim  60 May  2 21:29 dconf
>  dr-x------. 2 tim tim   0 May  2 16:25 gvfs
>  drwx------. 2 tim tim 100 May  2 16:25 keyring
>  drwx------. 2 tim tim  80 May  2 16:25 pulse
>
> I thought root couldn't be stopped from viewing user's files.
>
> --
>
> uname -rsvp
> Linux 3.10.0-1160.25.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Apr 28 21:49:45 UTC 2021 x86_64
>
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+------------------------------------------------------------+
 Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor 
(Retired)     
 mailto:[e-mail]                            
 mailto:[e-mail]
 Guam - Where America's Day Begins                        
 G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer 
 http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
+------------------------------------------------------------+

[Jon LaBadie]

On Sun, May 02, 2021 at 09:35:23PM +0930, Tim via users wrote:
...
> If I do (still as the root user):  ll /run/user/1000/
>
> ls: cannot access /run/user/1000/gvfs: Permission denied
> total 0
> drwx------. 2 tim tim  60 May  2 21:25 dconf
> d?????????? ? ?   ?     ?            ? gvfs
> drwx------. 2 tim tim 100 May  2 16:25 keyring
> drwx------. 2 tim tim  80 May  2 16:25 pulse
>
> Not sure if root oughtn't to be able to see gvfs, or that's just some
> weird anomaly about how virtual file systems work.
>
> Then, as myself, doing:  ll /run/user/1000/
>
> total 0
> drwx------. 2 tim tim  60 May  2 21:29 dconf
> dr-x------. 2 tim tim   0 May  2 16:25 gvfs
> drwx------. 2 tim tim 100 May  2 16:25 keyring
> drwx------. 2 tim tim  80 May  2 16:25 pulse
>
> I thought root couldn't be stopped from viewing user's files.

Several things reduce root's omnipotence, notably a network
real or virtual.

You may be root on your computer, but that is no reason to give
you unfettered access to my computer.

gvfs is typically used to automatically mount some remote file
systems.  For example, plug your phone into a USB port and its
file system may mount as a gvfs.  Root is no longer special.

jl