Issue

• The version of tail that is shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 appears to be mishandling dead symlinks.
• tail -F current-log prints tail: cannot watch 'current-log': No such file or directory under the following sequence:

1. Open a terminal and run the following commands:

# touch mylog-1
# ln -s mylog-1 current-log

2. In a separate terminal, execute:

# tail -F current-log

3. Return to the first terminal and run these:

# echo content >> mylog-1;
# rm -f current-log
# ln -s mylog-2 current-log
#echo content >> mylog-2

• tail -F running in the second terminal prints the error when ln -s mylog-2 current-log is executed and stops tracking current-log.
• Why does tail -F not handle dead symlinks gracefully in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4?