Question: How do you create a symbolic link between two directories in Linux?

To create a symbolic link pass the -s option to the ln command followed by the target file and the name of link. In the following example a file is symlinked into the bin folder. In the following example a mounted external drive is symlinked into a home directory.

To create a symbolic link, use the -s ( –symbolic ) option. If both the FILE and LINK are given, ln will create a link from the file specified as the first argument ( FILE ) to the file specified as the second argument ( LINK ).

Replace source_file with the name of the existing file for which you want to create the symbolic link (this file can be any existing file or directory across the file systems). Replace myfile with the name of the symbolic link. The ln command then creates the symbolic link.

To create a symbolic link in Nautilus, press and hold the Ctrl and Shift keys on your keyboard. Drag and drop a file or folder to another location. Nautilus will create a symbolic link to the original file or folder at the location you drop the file or folder rather than moving the original file or folder.

To view the symbolic links in a directory:

  1. Open a terminal and move to that directory.
  2. Type the command: ls -la. This shall long list all the files in the directory even if they are hidden.
  3. The files that start with l are your symbolic link files.

Include a single “ <TARGET> ” variable, defining it as the complete path to a desired directory. The system will create a symbolic link using the value defined as the ” <LINKNAME> ” variable. The creation of a symlink is implied and the -s option is applied by default. …

The reason hard-linking directories is not allowed is a little technical. Essentially, they break the file-system structure. You should generally not use hard links anyway. Symbolic links allow most of the same functionality without causing problems (e.g ln -s target link ).

A hard link is a file that points to the same underlying inode, as another file. In case you delete one file, it removes one link to the underlying inode. Whereas a symbolic link (also known as soft link) is a link to another filename in the filesystem.

Simplest way: cd to where the symbolic link is located and do ls -l to list the details of the files. The part to the right of -> after the symbolic link is the destination to which it is pointing.

UNIX Symbolic link or Symlink Tips

  1. Use ln -nfs to update the soft link. …
  2. Use pwd in a combination of UNIX soft link to find out the actual path your soft link is pointing out. …
  3. To find out all UNIX soft link and hard link in any directory execute following command “ls -lrt | grep “^l” “.
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