[Bug 19410] New: Evolution IMAP subscribing gets confused with recursive symlinks

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Ubuntu | evolution

           Summary: Evolution IMAP subscribing gets confused with recursive
                    symlinks
           Product: Ubuntu
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: i386
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: evolution
        AssignedTo: seb128 at ubuntu.com
        ReportedBy: richard.kinder at gmail.com
         QAContact: desktop-bugs at lists.ubuntu.com


OK, probably a weird setup I've got here, but it exposes a nasty bug in
evolution (one that I think has been present for many years). Firstly the IMAP
server I'm using is set up to use the normal user home directory to store the
mailbox files. I also use this home directory for various other stuff, some of
which has recursive symlinks to other points on the filesystem, as well as my
home directory. We also have a backup system that puts snapshots of the user
directory under the user directory '.snapshot' taken at various points in the past.

Issue is for a symlink such as:

/users/rkinder/some_dir/rkinder_home -> /users/rkinder

which is also shown (as an example) in the '.snapshot' directory as:

/users/rkinder/.snapshot/0/some_dir/rkinder_home -> /users/rkinder

I also have symlinks that point to '/', which also have a lot of automount
partitions under it from all around the world (ie slow WAN links, very slow to
read/write files/get file listings)

Now the issue is when in evolution I try and subscribe to folders via the IMAP
server, I see a lot of IMAP traffic where evo is requesting directories, and
traversing deep down a recursive rat-hole (ie
/users/rkinder/.snapshot/0/some_dir/rkinder_home/.snapshot/0/some_dir/rkinder_home/.snapshot...
etc) and basically going through my entire home directory (all 11gigs of it)
multiple times. Note that it does eventually seem to stop, but only after 10
minutes CPU time on the imap server daemon process. The problem gets
exponentially worse when evo queries the symlink to '/' -> hits the automounts
and starts trawling through directories mounted on mars. Short story: IMAP
subscribing will not complete in my lifetime...

Now I realise having these recursive/filesystem symlinks could be dangerous, but
evolution shouldn't be:

1) Searching outside the home directory
2) Doing very deep recursive searching - ie it should be able to detect it's
been here before, no?

I hate doing this, but I'll compare the behaviour to thunderbird - thunderbird
brings up the list of folders quite quickly (O(seconds)), whereas evolution sits
spinning essentially forever. I killed it after 30 minutes when it was searching
around the world via the slow WAN links.

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