How can I symlink a file in Linux

Question

I want to make a symbolic link in Linux  I have written this Bash command where the first path is the folder I want link into and the second path is the compiled source    ln -s   basebuild   IpDome-kernel kernel  home build sandbox gen2 basebuild IpDome-kernel kernal    Is this correct

User · Answer

Creating Symbolic links or Soft-links on Linux:

Open Bash prompt and type the below mentioned command to make a symbolic link to your file:

A) Goto the folder where you want to create a soft link and typeout the command as mentioned below:

$ ln -s (path-to-file) (symbolic-link-to-file)
$ ln -s /home/user/file new-file

B) Goto your new-file name path and type:

$ ls -lrt (To see if the new-file is linked to the file or not)

Example:

user@user-DT:[~/Desktop/soft]# ln -s /home/user/Desktop/soft/File_B /home/user/Desktop/soft/File_C
user@user-DT:[~/Desktop/soft]# ls -lrt
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user  0 Dec 27 16:51 File_B
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user  0 Dec 27 16:51 File_A
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user 31 Dec 27 16:53 File_C -> /home/user/Desktop/soft/File_B


Note: Where, File_C -> /home/user/Desktop/soft/File_B  Means, File_C is symbolically linked to File_B

User · Answer

ln -s EXISTING FILE OR DIRECTORY SYMLINK NAME

User · Answer

This is Stack Overflow so I assume you want code  All following code assumes that you want to create a symbolic link named  tmp link that links to  tmp realfile  CAUTION  Although this code checks for errors  it does NOT check if  tmp realfile actually exists   This is because a dead link is still valid and depending on your code you might  rarely  want to create the link before the real file   Shell  bash  zsh          bin sh ln -s  tmp realfile  tmp link  Real simple  just like you would do it on the command line  which is the shell   All error handling is done by the shell interpreter  This code assumes that you have a working shell interpreter at  bin sh   If needed you could still implement your own error handling by using the    variable which will only be set to 0 if the link was successfully created  C and C    include  lt unistd h gt   include  lt stdio h gt   int main        if  symlink  quot  tmp realfile quot    quot  tmp link quot      0       perror  quot Can t create the symlink quot       symlink only returns 0 when the link can be created  In other cases I m using perror to tell more about the problem  Perl    usr bin perl if  symlink  quot  tmp realfile quot    quot  tmp link quot      1      print STDERR  quot Can t create the symlink     n quot     This code assumes you have a perl 5 interpreter at  usr bin perl  symlink only returns 1 if the link can be created  In other cases I m printing the failure reason to the standard error output

User · Answer

ln -s TARGET LINK NAME   Where the -s makes it symbolic

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Because an ASCII picture is worth a thousand characters     An arrow may be a helpful mnemonic  especially since that s almost exactly how it looks in Emacs  dired    And big picture so you don t get it confused with the Windows  version  Linux    ln -s target  lt - linkName   Windows    mklink linkName - gt  target   You could also look at these as   ln -s  to-here   lt -  from-here  mklink  from-here  - gt   to-here    The from-here should not exist yet  it is to be created  while the to-here should already exist  IIRC      I always get mixed up on whether various commands and arguments should involve a pre-existing location  or one to be made     EDIT  It s still sinking in slowly for me  I have another way I ve written in my notes    ln -s  target exists   link is made  mklink  link is made   target exists

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ln -s target linkName   You can have a look at the man page here   http   linux die net man 1 ln

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To the original question      ln -s   basebuild   IpDome-kernel kernel  home build sandbox gen2 basebuild IpDome-kernel kernal    This will indeed create a symbolic link  -s  from the file directory    lt basebuild gt  IpDome-kernel kernel   to your new link   home build sandbox gen2 basebuild IpDome-kernel kernal     Here s a few ways to help you remember    First  there s the man page for ln  You can access this via searching  man ln  in google  or just open a terminal window and type man ln and you ll get the same information  The man page clearly states           ln  OPTION      -T  TARGET LINK NAME    1st form         If having to search or read through a man page every time isn t for you  maybe you ll have an easier time remembering that all nix commands work the same way   cp  file that exists  location for new file mv  file that exists  location its moving to ln  file that exists  the new link   cp copies a file that currently exists  the first argument  to a new file  the second argument   mv moves a file that currently exists  the first argument  to a new place  the second argument  Likewise ln links a file that currently exists  the first argument  to a new link  the second argument      The final option I would like to suggest is you can create your own man pages that are easy to read and easy  for you  to find remember  Just make a simple shell script that gives you the hint you need  For example    In your  bash aliases file you can place something like   commandsfx         echo  Symlink   ln -s  path to file  path to symlink      echo  Copy      cp  file to copy  destination to send copy     alias  cmds  commandsfx   Then when you need it  from the command line just type cmds and you ll get back the proper syntax in a way you can quickly read and understand it  You can make these functions as advanced as you d like to get what what information you need  it s up to you  You could even make them interactive so you just have to follow the prompts   something like   makesymlink         echo  Symlink name       read sym     echo  File to link to       read fil     ln -s  fil  sym    alias  symlink  makesymlink     - well obviously they can all take different parameters and do different things and can work on files as well as directories    but the premise is the same   - examples using the bash shell

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How to create symlink in vagrant   Steps    In vagrant file create a synced folder  e g config vm synced folder  F  Sunburst source sunburst lms     source  F  Sunburst source sunburst lms  - where the source code   source  - directory path inside the vagrant  Vagrant up and type vagrant ssh and go to source directory e g cd source Verify your source code folder structure is available in the source directory  e g  source local Then go to the guest machine directory where the files which are associate with the browser  After get backup of the file  e g sudo mv local local bk Then create symlink e g  sudo ln -s  source local local  local mean link-name  folder name in guest machine which you are going to link  if you need to remove the symlink  - Type sudo rm local

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ln -s sourcepath linkpathname   Note   -s makes symbolic links instead of hard links

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To create a new symlink  will fail if symlink exists already   ln -s  path to file  path to symlink  To create or update a symlink  ln -sf  path to file  path to symlink

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If you are in the directory where you want to create symlink  then ignore second path   cd myfolder ln -s target   It will create symlink of target inside myfolder    General syntax  ln -s TARGET LINK NAME

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To create a symbolic link  soft link  use   ln -s  source-filename   symbolic-filename    e g    ln -s file1 link1

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ln -s source file target file   http   unixhelp ed ac uk CGI man-cgi ln

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ln  -Ffhinsv  source file  target file       link  ln -- make links          -s    Create a symbolic link       A symbolic link contains the name of the file to which it is linked        An ln command appeared in Version 1 AT amp T UNIX

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I d like to present a plainer-English version of the descriptions already presented    ln -s   path-text of-symbolic-link   path to file-to-hold-that-text   The  ln  command creates a link-FILE  and the  -s  specifies that the type of link will be symbolic   An example of a symbolic-link file can be found in a WINE installation  using  ls -la  to show one line of the directory contents     lrwxrwxrwx 1 me power 11 Jan  1 00 01 a  - gt   mnt floppy   Standard file-info stuff is at left  although note the first character is an  l  for  link    the file-name is  a   and the  -   also indicates the file is a link   It basically tells WINE how Windows  Drive A   is to be associated with a floppy drive in Linux   To actually create a symbolic link SIMILAR to that  in current directory  and to actually do this for WINE is more complicated  use the  winecfg  utility     ln -s   mnt floppy  a      will not work if file a  already exists

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There are two types of links    symbolic links  Refer to a symbolic path indicating the abstract location of another file  hard links  Refer to the specific location of physical data   In your case symlinks   ln -s source target   you can refer to http   man7 org linux man-pages man7 symlink 7 html  you can create too hard links  A hard link to a file is indistinguishable from the original directory entry  any changes to a file are effectively independent of the name used to reference the file  Hard links may not normally refer to directories and may not span file systems   ln source link

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I find a bit confusing the terminologies  target  and  directory  in the man information    The target is the folder that we are symlinking to and the directory the actual symlink  not the directory that you will be symlinking to   if anyone is experiencing the same confusion  don t feel alone    This is my interpretation of creating a Symlink  in linux    ln -s  FULL PATH FOLDER-OR-FILE-SYMLINKING-TO NAME-OF-YOUR-SYMLINK   You can navigate to the folder where you want to create the symlink and run the command or specify the FULL PATH for your symlink instead of NAME-OF-YOUR-SYMLINK   cd  FULL PATH TO MY-SYMLINK-PARENT-FOLDER ln -s  FULL PATH FOLDER-OR-FILE-SYMLINKING-TO NAME-OF-YOUR-SYMLINK   OR  ln -s  FULL PATH FOLDER-OR-FILE-SYMLINKING-TO  FULL PATH TO MY-SYMLINK-PARENT-FOLDER NAME-OF-YOUR-SYMLINK   I hope this helps to those  still  slighly confused

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Links are basically of two types   Symbolic links  soft   link to a symbolic path indicating the abstract location of another file  Hard links  link to the specific location of physical data   Example 1   ln  root file1  root file2   The above is an example of a hard link where you can have a copy of your physical data   Example 2   ln -s  path to file1 txt  path to file2 txt   The above command will create a symbolic link to file1 txt   If you delete a source file then you won t have anything to the destination in soft   When you do   ls -lai  You ll see that there is a different inode number for the symlinks   For more details  you can read the man page of ln on your Linux OS

[linux] How can I symlink a file in Linux?

Creating Symbolic links or Soft-links on Linux:

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