008 - Was geschieht mit symbolischen Links?
The symbolic links are handled differently in archive and backup.
The processing type is controlled by one variable each, which you can define in dsm.opt or on the command line.
In the case of archive the variable is called ARCHSYMLINKASFILE
, in the case of backup the variable is called FOLLOWSYMBOLIC
. Please refer to the manufacturer documentation of your client for the exact description of the variables.
The default settings of the two above mentioned variables of the ISP client are chosen as follows:
During backup symbolic links are not resolved. If the file is restored, a symbolic link is created again, which points to the same file path as before. It is not possible to follow a symbolic link to a directory to search for a file within ISP.
During archiving symbolic links are resolved. So an archive file is created with the path name the symbolic link had and the content of the file to which the link points at the time of archiving. You can use this specifically to give the archive file a certain name, but it can also prove disadvantageous if a file had several names and it is no longer known under which one it was archived. In the special case that an invalid link (target not (anymore) available) is archived, ISP only saves the corresponding link.
In both cases this handling of symbolic links can cause files to seem to have disappeared without a trace when they are searched under a different name than they were created under. During backup, which is usually done automatically and regularly, the "correct" name is always the one that does not contain a link; during archiving, on the other hand, the name that was actually used during the archiving process.