Invalid cross-device link when output-dir is not on same device as the source file

[grst]

I have the source code of the quarto project checked out in my home directory. I want the rendered report to be stored on a shared group drive that is on a different network mount than my home directory. Therefore I render the document with

quarto render analysis.qmd --to html --embed-resources --standalone --output-dir /shared_data/analysis.html

This results in the following error

ERROR: Invalid cross-device link (os error 18), rename '/home/sturmgre/<path redacted>/analysis.html' -> '/data/<path redacted>/analysis.html'

Error: Invalid cross-device link (os error 18), rename '/home/sturmgre/<path redacted>/analysis.html' -> '/data/<path redacted>/analysis.html'
    at Object.renameSync (deno:runtime/js/30_fs.js:175:9)
    at renderProject (file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:86845:22)
    at async Command.fn (file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:90869:32)
    at async Command.execute (file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:8437:13)
    at async quarto (file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:127555:5)
    at async file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:127573:9

[mcanouil]

I cannot reproduce using the development version of Quarto.
To note, --output-dir is only a valid option within a Quarto project which means the presence of _quarto.yml that you did not provide.

Could you share a small self-contained "working" (reproducible) example to work with, i.e., a complete Quarto document or a Git repository? Thanks.

You can share a Quarto document using the following syntax, i.e., using more backticks than you have in your document (usually four ````).

````qmd
---
title: "Reproducible Quarto Document"
format: html
---

This is a reproducible Quarto document using `format: html`.
It is written in Markdown and contains embedded R code.
When you run the code, it will produce a plot.

```{r}
plot(cars)
```

The end.
````

[grst]

The following reproduces the problem for me

ANALYSIS_DIR=/home/sturmgre/quarto-test
DATA=/data/test

cd $ANALYSIS_DIR
echo "Hello World" > test.qmd
touch _quarto.yml

# Creating a hard link should fail - this is to test that the two devices are really independent
ln test.qmd $DATA/test.qmd

ln: failed to create hard link ‘/data/test//test.qmd’ => ‘test.qmd’: Invalid cross-device link

quarto render test.qmd --to html --standalone --embed-resources --output-dir $DATA

  to: html
  output-file: test.html
  standalone: true
  section-divs: true
  html-math-method: mathjax
  wrap: none
  default-image-extension: png

metadata
  document-css: false
  link-citations: true
  date-format: long
  lang: en

ERROR: Invalid cross-device link (os error 18), rename '/home/sturmgre/quarto-test/test.html' -> '/data/test/test.html'

Error: Invalid cross-device link (os error 18), rename '/home/sturmgre/quarto-test/test.html' -> '/data/test/test.html'
    at Object.renameSync (deno:runtime/js/30_fs.js:175:9)
    at renderProject (file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:86845:22)
    at async Command.fn (file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:90869:32)
    at async Command.execute (file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:8437:13)
    at async quarto (file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:127555:5)
    at async file:///home/sturmgre/apps/quarto/bin/quarto.js:127573:9

Tested with both v1.3.427 and the latest development version.

[mcanouil]

I still can't reproduce and don't understand the goal of trying to hard link the file.
Below my reproducible example (i.e., yours is not):

echo "Hello World" > test.qmd
touch _quarto.yml
mkdir /tmp/test
quarto render test.qmd --to html --standalone --embed-resources --output-dir /tmp/test

Is DATA=/data/test a local drive/volume or network/cloud volume?

[grst]

Executing your reproducible example leads to exactly the same error for me.

My point was that $DATA and $HOME are different network volumes. Therefore it's not possible to create a hard link between them.

What happens if you try creating a hard link to your /tmp directory?

ln test.qmd /tmp/test

Depending on you system, /tmp may or may not be an independent volume and therefore not suitable to reproduce my issue.

[mcanouil]

Executing your reproducible example leads to exactly the same error for me.

Your home is not on the same volume as /tmp?

You seem to imply, if you use an output directory within the same volume, it works, but is it?

---

Because, as I said, --output-dir is for Quarto project and is not designed for simple document (see #2171), you should consider using quarto render test.qmd --to html --standalone --embed-resources && mv test.html $DATA/.

---

See already opened issues regarding network drives/volumes:

• https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+network+label%3Afile-systems

[grst]

Your home is not on the same volume as /tmp

No, on the server I'm working on /tmp is stored entirely in RAM.

You seem to imply, if you use an output directory within the same volume, it works, but is it?

Exactly, if I use

quarto render test.qmd --to html --standalone --embed-resources --output-dir ..

it works flawlessly. Sorry if this hasn't been clear before.

EDIT: I don't think the the drives being "network" drives is a problem as on linux they are a path as any other. The error would also occur with two different local drives.

[mcanouil]

Still without the means to reproduce, it's very unlikely the issue can be solved.

Anyway, this has already been discussed/reported in the issues I linked above and in particular:

• --output-dir fails on cross-device destination #2671

So feel free to add complementary information on the other issue as I am closing this one as a duplicate.