WebAssembly / WebAssembly/WASI

Remove path flags from `link-at` ?

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Description

Currently, link-at looks like this:

// link-at: async func(old-path-flags: path-flags, old-path: string,
                       new-descriptor: borrow<descriptor>, new-path: string)
                       -> result<_, error-code>;

The old-path-flags can either be empty or symlink-follow. Thing is, wasmtime does not support symlink-follow on link-at, returning an error immediately. Perhaps this is reasonable, as you can always racily readlink the old-path yourself, and the plain link syscall does not dereference symbolic links.

So, should we keep the path flags, or is wasmtime in the wrong for not allowing for symlink-follow ? Cc @sunfishcode, @alexcrichton.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the link-at signature and the stated behavior of wasmtime for symlink-follow. Determine whether the path flags should be removed from the interface or whether wasmtime should support them; done means resolving that specification question and identifying the required behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
wasm
Domain
operating-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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