Symbolic link support

🍱 Features & apps
18

Hi, thanks for Nextcloud!

I would like to know if there is any news on the state of symlink support wrt the sync client.

Beforehand, I would like to clarify:

  1. In talking about symlinks, I am not interested in them in view of using nextcloud as a backup strategy.

  2. I am interested in storing symlinks “as they are”, with no dereferencing what so ever. With no dereferencing, symlinks cannot be a security risk.

  3. I know that not all platform support symlinks equally well. To me, it would be OK to have the sync client

    • Recognize the existence of a symlink on the client host and store it in the server as a file. For instance, if I have a symbolic link, such as foo.txt being a symbolic link to ../bar.txt, I would be happy of seeing on the server a foo.txt file with content symlink -> ../bar.txt. Then, the other way round, when getting something that is on the server, but not on the client, recognize if the item to be synced is a file whose content matches the symlink magic, and (i) if so; and (ii) if on a platform supporting symlinks, change the file on the client into a symbolic link.

Rationale

  1. To me symlinks support is critical to the storing and sharing of stuff in next cloud, because they are a part of how data is made accessible and searchable in large directory structures. Furthermore, when certain LaTeX documents are stored in a directory structure, they are functional to assure that LaTeX then finds things where it expects them to be, without having to duplicate files. When certain spreadsheets are stored in a directory structure, they assure that linked spreadsheets are found where they are expected to be without duplicating files on the client. When some code is stored in a directory structure, symlinks may be used to assure that the makefile finds things where they are expected to be.

  2. The behaviour described in point 3 above: is not disruptive; it can be made switchable on/off per client; does not require any support in the server (just in the sync client); can be acceptable for clients running on OSs that do not support symlinks; is compatible with webdav; lets the existence of symlinks be discovered and explored easily with the web interface since they are stored as regular files, but easily recognizable by their content for having a special function; by having no dereferencing neither in the server, nor in the sync software does not pose any security issue.

  3. The behaviour described in point 3 above is consistent with the symlink support provided in other pieces of software (e.g. git for windows, aka msysgit) on platforms that do not have good support for symlinks.

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