RH8 /usr/bin/mh links to /usr/bin???

brian4xp · 04-21-2008, 08:29 PM

I've Googled for this and found where someone else has seen this but no explanation.

Code:

#cd /usr/bin
#ls -l mh
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            1 Dec 25  2002 mh -> .

Any explanation of this?

It came up during a tar of /usr where it appeared to go into a loop, backing up /usr/bin under /usr/bin/mh, then under /usr/bin/mh/mh ....

After I noticed that about 10 levels of mh were scrolling on the screen I killed it then removed the link.

Is this link a bug or is there some reason for it to be there?

lskynyrd · 04-21-2008, 11:03 PM

Greetings -

I'm not familiar with the file structure of RH (Slackware user), but mh should not be a symbolic link to /usr/bin. Look in your home directory for a .mh_profile file. If it exists, take a gander at this file and see if there is a statement that creates the symbolic link to /usr/bin. MH (Message Handling) should not be a symbolic link to /usr/bin. There could also be a startup script that keeps creating this looping link. I hope that this helps. As a last resort look at the man page for mh or xmh.

Sincerely

brian4xp · 04-22-2008, 08:39 AM

There were only 4 users that had a .mh_profile, and all of them had only one line which was.

Path: Mail

Oh, and I did come across something that told me that scp can't handle symbolic links so it was the scp I had done prior to the tar that actually created the multiple subdirectories of /usr/bin under /usr/bin/mh.

I've also found this mh link on a RH7 machine, and I believe I've seen a post indicating it was in RH6 as well, but I've yet to find any explanation.