What does errno 90 (ELOOP) in Solaris mean?

ELOOP

Symbolic-link loop or excessive symlink traversal

ELOOP is Solaris errno 90 (Symbolic link loop). Solaris exceeded the symbolic-link traversal limit while resolving a path.

Resolve the path component by component and record each symbolic-link target. The loop can be indirect across several directories, so inspecting only the final link can miss the deployment or chroot mapping that closes the cycle.

What to check

• Inspect the complete path, not just the final component.
• Check for symlink cycles introduced by deployment or chroot-style layouts.
• Compare with ENAMETOOLONG when the problem is length rather than traversal count.

References

• Oracle Solaris intro(2): error numbers
• illumos errno.h definitions
• POSIX errno.h