# boot: Too many levels of symbolic links?[SOLVED]

## BurningIce

I recently tried to update my kernel and when i went to /boot, i realized that it was flashing red highlight. So i decided to try to cd into the boot (symlink) from /boot and i get this error:

```
BurningIce linux # cd /boot

BurningIce boot # ls

boot  bzImage

BurningIce boot # cd boot

bash: cd: boot: Too many levels of symbolic links

```

Any Ideas?Last edited by BurningIce on Wed Jul 30, 2008 8:41 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## yabbadabbadont

/boot/boot is a symbolic link that points to /boot/.  (the current directory)  It is only there to make things work when people use "/boot/" in their grub.conf when they don't need to.  i.e. when /boot is its own partition.

Edit: it is supposed to be a symbolic link pointing to /boot/.  If it is flashing red, then it is a bad link and something is very wrong...

Please post the output of "ls -l /boot" both with, and without, /boot being mounted.

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## x22

The symbolic link /boot/boot probably points to itself. It should point to "." (single dot).

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## i92guboj

 *yabbadabbadont wrote:*   

> /boot/boot is a symbolic link that points to /boot/.  (the current directory)  It is only there to make things work when people use "/boot/" in their grub.conf when they don't need to.  i.e. when /boot is its own partition.

 

Exactly. It's just a convenient way to make things work when grub.conf is incorrect. If boot is a separate partition, let's say (hd0,4), then the kernel line should be something like:

```

root (hd0,4)

kernel (hd0,4)/vmlinuz-<whatever>

```

And not

```

root (hd0,4)

kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz-<whatever>

```

This last one would be like saying "/boot/boot/vmlinuz-<whatever>", which does only work because of the recursive symlink. This produces lots of problems when the symlink is broken for ore or another reason. Particularly I think that this is a bad thing. People should use a correct grub.conf, and not rely on silly workarounds like this symlink thingy. That kind of thing educate the users on bad habits, and then the things fails and no one knows what the reason is   :Rolling Eyes: 

In any case:

```

cd /boot; ln -snf . boot

```

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## BurningIce

Thanks guys. That did the trick. Although it worries me b/c that only happened after a failed emerge -uDN world...(which im still trying to fix)

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