Unable to commit Symlink files for dispatcher from windows

[georhe6]

Hi Team,

I am unable to commit symlink created for enabled_Vhost and enabled_Farms from windows machine.
I tried using WSL also but the symlink files are not listing at all. How to resolve this issue.

AEM as CS, Dispatcher , symlink

[arunpatidar · Accepted solution]

Hi @georhe6 
Please check if this helps
https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/wiki/Symbolic-Links#creating-symbolic-links 

[MeasurableBusinessResults]

Given that this is so cumbersome (I have the same issue in a Windows box without admin priviledges right now),
and that symbolic links are not really cross-platform compatible (as described in the link you shared: https://gitforwindows.org/symbolic-links.html )
and that this whole approach of soft-linking available configs to an enabled configs folder is a historic Apache legacy, and MAY make sense on a manually managed server, but in a modern CI/CD devops setup does not make any sense at all imho - because I will not have disabled unused configs lying around on my servers, I will only have active ones, so always available == enabled,

Why not get rid of the "available" folder completely, and just put the actual files in "enabled"?
No need for redundant symlinks anymore...

So the main question is: while Adobe AEM product dev team may need some time to come to the same conclusion, in the meantime can I just put files into "enabled" folder directly if I want to, or will the webtier pipeline complain and fail with an error?

[arunpatidar]

Hi @MeasurableBusinessResults 

Please check below for folder structure and how to create symlinks in Windows

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/implementing/con...

Unfortunately you can't put files into "enabled" folder directly.

[MeasurableBusinessResults]

Hi Arun,

unfortunately your answer is wrong. It's possible to put the actual files into the "enabled" Folder directly. The pipeline log prints a warning, but continues and it works.

[arunpatidar]

Hi @MeasurableBusinessResults 

Maybe its working now but I would suggest to follow the recommendation from Adobe. There might be a reason why adobe suggested using this approach.

for more clarity you may open Adobe Support ticket. 

[MeasurableBusinessResults]

I eventually managed to create real symlinks on the Windows machine where my code was checked out.

This was the only way to make the warnings and errors in Adobe cloud pipelines go away
(although temporarily the warnings may be ok for testing, as Arun suggested is probably better to follow the docs)

Note: I had tried various tricks to get Git to accept files that are not true symlinks as symlinks when adding them (google will find some instructions like this) - but all these failed for me when the code is checked out in the cloud. Only real symlinks worked in the end.

[arunpatidar]

Windows symlink example at https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/adobe-experience-manager/migration-dispatcher-issue... 

[Tethich]

Hi @georhe6 

I believe you can recreate them or instruct git to allow them (symlinks = true)

😞https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-learn/ams/dispatcher/git-symlinks
https://gist.github.com/huenisys/1efb64e57c37cfab7054c65702588fce

Try to see if any of these two links leads you to a fix.

[giuseppebaglio]

To address the issue at hand, it is important to follow a systematic approach. Here are the steps to consider for resolving the matter:

1. Enable symlink support in Git

git config --global core.symlinks true​

• Create symlinks with elevated privileges using mklink from Command Prompt or PowerShell as an Administrator:

mklink enabled_Vhost path\to\target\Vhost
mklink enabled_Farms path\to\target\Farms​

• Verify (git status) and commit (git add then git commit) the symlinks using Git for Windows.
• Avoid mixing WSL and Windows-native tools for symlink management. If you’re using WSL, note that symlinks created in WSL most likely will not be compatible with Windows-native tools like Git for Windows. To avoid this:
  • Ensure that the symlinks are created in the Windows file system (not inside the WSL-specific file system).
  • Use Git for Windows to manage the repository instead of WSL’s Git.

[kautuk_sahni]

@georhe6 Did you find the suggestions helpful? Please let us know if you need more information. If a response worked, kindly mark it as correct for posterity; alternatively, if you found a solution yourself, we’d appreciate it if you could share it with the community. Thank you!