Unexpected behavior (to me) for "cfagent -L"

[Scott A. Woods]

Hello,

I'm hoping someone can clarify this behavior for me.  I have the
following line in cfagent.conf:

    files:
        /etc checksum=md5 recurse=inf
        
I then added "-L" when I invoked cfagent, and it removed all links
that point to files outside of /etc :

    *snip*
    
    cfengine:mouse: Skipping ignored directory /etc
    Registering root device as 772
    cfengine:mouse: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown is a link which 
points to sbin/ifdown, but that file doesn't seem to exist
    cfengine:mouse: Removing dead link /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown
    cfengine:mouse: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup is a link which points 
to sbin/ifup, but that file doesn't seem to exist
    cfengine:mouse: Removing dead link /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup
    cfengine:mouse: /etc/X11/xdm/authdir is a link which points to var/lib/xdm, 
but that file doesn't seem to exist
    cfengine:mouse: Removing dead link /etc/X11/xdm/authdir
    cfengine:mouse: /etc/X11/xkb is a link which points to 
usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb, but that file doesn't seem to exist
    cfengine:mouse: Removing dead link /etc/X11/xkb
    
    *snip*

(glad it was a throw-away machine). Here's what the
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ directory originally looked like:

    -rw-r--r--    1 root     root          209 Nov 26 11:14 ifcfg-eth0
    -rw-r--r--    1 root     root          254 Jun 20  2001 ifcfg-lo
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           20 Dec  2 17:11 ifdown -> 
../../../sbin/ifdown
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1026 Jan 23  2001 ifdown-aliases
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          820 Mar 11  2002 ifdown-ippp
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1580 Sep 12 17:42 ifdown-ipsec
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         4091 Aug 15 16:11 ifdown-ipv6
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           11 Nov 26 10:56 ifdown-isdn -> 
ifdown-ippp
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1137 Jun 27 16:37 ifdown-post
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1082 Sep 15 01:40 ifdown-ppp
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1568 Nov 11  2002 ifdown-sit
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          902 Jun 26  2002 ifdown-sl
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           18 Dec  2 17:11 ifup -> 
../../../sbin/ifup
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        13156 Sep  3 23:28 ifup-aliases
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        11157 Oct 22 12:45 ifup-ippp
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         7598 Sep 26 15:40 ifup-ipsec
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        10144 Oct 20 00:06 ifup-ipv6
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          821 Jun 26  2002 ifup-ipx
    lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            9 Nov 26 10:56 ifup-isdn -> 
ifup-ippp
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          689 Jun 26  2002 ifup-plip
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          926 Jun 26  2002 ifup-plusb
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         2932 Jun 23 23:10 ifup-post
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         3926 Oct 22 12:45 ifup-ppp
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1197 Aug 22 05:41 ifup-routes
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         3534 Jan  7  2003 ifup-sit
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1646 Jun 26  2002 ifup-sl
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         2821 Jun 27  2002 ifup-wireless
    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         5408 Aug 17 20:54 init.ipv6-global
    -rw-r--r--    1 root     root         7327 Oct 20 16:42 network-functions
    -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        41756 Sep  3 18:49 
network-functions-ipv6

In all cases, the links did point to existing files that were even on
the same filesystem. The only links that got deleted were the relative
ones that pointed to files outside of /etc. In addition, the
diagnostic output of cfagent omits the parent directories "../../"
when it mentions the soon-to-be-removed links (bug?).

>From the documentation, I wouldn't expect this behavior since I've
only found mention of -L removing links to non-existent files. Is this
behavior expected? Have I missed something in the documentation?

I'm running cfengine 2.1.0p1 on stock Fedora Core 1. If it's helpful,
I can work on a minimal cfagent.conf file that still reproduces the
problem.

Thank you,

-- Scott

-- 
----------------------------------------
        Scott A. Woods
        West Arete Computing
        user "scott" at domain "westarete dot com"
        +1 610 780 5141