childlinks problem

[Jeremy 'Circ' Charles]

I am running cfengine 2.0.8p1 and have the following notation in my
cfagent.conf:

links:
        /opt/miscutils ->! /opt/miscutils-2.0
        /opt/std/bin +>! /opt/miscutils/bin
        /opt/std/sbin +>! /opt/miscutils/sbin

It seems that cfagent is attempting to create links to the stuff in
/opt/miscutils/bin and /opt/miscutils/sbin before it creates the link
for /opt/miscutils itself.  In other words, it seems to actually be
performing the actions in this order:

        /opt/std/bin +>! /opt/miscutils/bin
        /opt/std/sbin +>! /opt/miscutils/sbin
        /opt/miscutils ->! /opt/miscutils-2.0

This results in the following complaint when I run cfagent with the -v
option:

epic-cfmaster2b:: Error while trying to childlink /opt/std/bin ->
/opt/miscutils/bin
epic-cfmaster2b:: The directory /opt/miscutils/bin does not exist. Can't
link.
epic-cfmaster2b:: Error while trying to childlink /opt/std/sbin ->
/opt/miscutils/sbin
epic-cfmaster2b:: The directory /opt/miscutils/sbin does not exist.
Can't link.
[....]
epic-cfmaster2b:: Linking files /opt/miscutils -> /opt/miscutils-2.0

The manual seems to suggest that this behavior shouldn't be happening -
that the links should be created in the order that they're listed in the
cfagent.conf.

I'd appreciate any hints that anyone can provide to help me figure out
what's going on and how to solve it.


P.S.  See you at the cfengine BoF and LISA!