Re: [PATCH] Return argv0-symlink.exp early if gdb can't load symlink

[Pedro Alves <palves at redhat dot com>]

On 04/02/2014 05:15 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2014 16:56:53 +0800
>> From: Yao Qi <yao@codesourcery.com>
>>
>> Looks native windows symlinks are created on some versions of windows
>> with some features turned on, so we can't skip this test by checking
>> triplet of host.
>> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.html#pathnames-symlinks
> 
> Creating native symlinks generally require elevation on Windows.  So
> unless Cygwin somehow managed to work around this (I didn't try, so I
> don't know), you will get UAC prompts when you try creating symlinks.
> 
> Therefore, I don't recommend to go there.
> 

I suspect it's the specific tool (mklink, perhaps?) that tries to create
symlinks that somehow runs a UAC prompt.  Cygwin's docs of winsymlinks:nativestrict,
at least don't suggest any prompt.  They say the symlink(2) system call
will fail immediately if Cygwin fails to create a native symlink for some reason.

On the permissions, according to:

 http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2011-04/msg00088.html

> They don't require administrator privilege per se: just SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege,
> which can be granted to normal user accounts via local security policy. The easiest way to
> grant SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege is to start gpedit.msc, go down to
> "Windows Settings"->"Security Settings"->"Local Policies"->"User Rights Assignment",
> then find "Create symbolic links" and add whatever users and groups you want[1].

Assuming not having the permissions doesn't cause prompts resulting in
testsuite run hangs, I think it's OK.  If the user doesn't have the
permissions, the symlink fails to be created and the tests require symlinks
end up UNRESOLVED or UNTESTED.

-- 
Pedro Alves