A special type of file that references a file or directory.
4
votes
2answers
1k views
How does linux work with symbolic links?
I mean what's going on when some process wants to read a symlink? What's going on when something changes a symlink during a read or even write process?
For example: I have 2 huge, similar 100G files ...
4
votes
2answers
301 views
How to rsync a chroot without breaking symlinks?
I'd like to rsync (backup) a chroot environment from outside the chroot.
For that I first make a lvm snapshot of the chroot volume and then run rsync on that.
The only problem with this approach: ...
4
votes
2answers
649 views
Trailing slashes on symbolic links to directories
I'm trying to emulate the process of path resolution (see man page path_resolution) in unix-like systems.
My OS is Linux with GNU coreutils 8.7.
In order to clarify the meaning of extra trailing '/' ...
4
votes
1answer
4k views
Make samba follow symlink outside share
This is ubuntu server 10.04 64 and samba 3.4.7
I have a shared directory /home/mit/share and another one /home/temp that I link into the shared one:
ln -s /home/temp /home/mit/share/temp
But on ...
4
votes
1answer
117 views
Move a file and re-target all of its symlinks [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How can I “relink” a lot of broken symlinks?
Is there any way to move a file to a new location, and then re-target its symlinks to the new location, using a shell ...
3
votes
6answers
871 views
Is it possible to “roll” a symlink to a new file without affecting any open file handles?
An application I am developing locally logs it's output to files formatted with the current timestamp such as app-%Y%m%d.log.
To make it simple to be able to tail the current's day log in a terminal ...
3
votes
2answers
54 views
cd to directory of a symbolically linked file
Before I write a script, anyone know an easy way to do the following:
$ pwd
/foo/bar
$ ls -l
lrwxr-xr-x 1 username admin 48 Apr 17 2012 foo.sh -> /bar/foo.sh
$ cd /bar
$ ls
foo.sh
i.e., in ...
3
votes
4answers
214 views
find all symbolic links in a directory tree pointing outside that tree
I frequently move directory trees to other locations or copy their tarballs to other machines, and I would like to have a method to check whether any symlinks in a directory tree A point to locations ...
3
votes
2answers
182 views
Why is bash giving me (apparently) conflicting information about a file?
Background
I am working on a RHEL 5 cluster. I want my Fortran program to read the file /home/bob/inputs/input_1
I asked Bob to give me permission to read all contents of inputs:
[bob@server]$ ...
3
votes
3answers
380 views
Linux find and remove all symlinks relating to a directory
So, I have a bit of a situation where I created many symlinks in an attempt to get them to work, trying all sorts of combinations .. now I have this error:
ls: cannot access /etc/sv/me: Too many ...
3
votes
2answers
62 views
How Do I Block Read Access to a Symbolic Link?
I have this file structure:
> APPLICATION 1
>> CONTROLLER (@JuniorProgrammers)
>> MODELS (symlink to SHARED/MODELS)
>> VIEWS (@Designers)
> APPLICATION 2
>> CONTROLLER ...
3
votes
1answer
115 views
Can we use symbolic link and hard link for directories?
I know we can do that for files. What about directories?
It seems that cpanel uses that a lot.
3
votes
2answers
98 views
Symbolic Link local .jpg file to .jpg file on the internet
Is there any way to have a symbolic link that links a local .jpg file to a .jpg file on the internet in a l/unix environment?
3
votes
2answers
195 views
Can I make a symlink point to different locations on different machines?
Before you say "no", a workaround would also be fine.
Here is the situation: I have two machines local and compile, both including the same ~ over nfs from a third machine files. I would like to have ...
3
votes
2answers
157 views
open a file using CDPATH and symlink
To quickly move around, I added a path to CDPATH that contains symlinks to different locations. I did this by adding the following line to .bashrc:
export CDPATH=~/symlinks
When working with ...
3
votes
3answers
177 views
Absolute link pointers, able to work in another system
I have a folder and within it there are many links.
I make those links absolute, so that I can move them about within the folder and they still point to the same data. Relative links would break if I ...
3
votes
4answers
892 views
Accidental deletion of /lib directory in Fedora 15
I accidentally deleted the /lib directory on my Fedora 15 machine and I'm not sure how to go about fixing this. Any help in figuring out how to restore the directory along with symbolic links would be ...
3
votes
1answer
71 views
Symbolic link starting with .#
I have a symlink in one of my directories that has the following name:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 XXXX ZZZ 37 Jan 15 18:18 .#perl.org -> XXX@YYY.com.2980:1344441539
I am wondering what this symlink ...
3
votes
3answers
158 views
How to diff two folders by inodes
I'm currently using a script to backup files on my computer.
In a nutshell, it works like this:
rsync --link-dest=$FOLDER/current $SOURCE $DESTINATION
However, I think that my script may be ...
3
votes
1answer
48 views
How can I efficiently dereference all symlinks in `find` *output* filenames?
I need paths to be both fully resolved and relative to a given directory. This must be done efficiently, since the number of paths is often greater than 100,000.
Situation: I have directories which ...
3
votes
3answers
74 views
Portable way to get script's absolute path?
What is a portable way for a (zsh) script to determine its absolute path?
On Linux I use something like
mypath=$(readlink -f $0)
...but this is not portable. (E.g., readlink on darwin does not ...
3
votes
1answer
522 views
How to replace a symbolic link with a copy of a file it links to?
Having a (single, no batch filesystem processing needed) symlink, what a command line to use to replace it with a copy of the file it links to?
3
votes
5answers
1k views
How to make a variable symlink ? (or something similar)
How can I make a variable symlink that would point to a different location according to the current user? Is it possible? Should I use something else instead? A mount point? How?
Here is the problem ...
3
votes
1answer
288 views
FreeBSD: Remove symlinks in devfs
Background
I have been rebuilding a small home NAS. This server represents my first 'real' foray into the world of server administration and it has taught me quite a bit already. Originally, the ...
3
votes
1answer
615 views
Is there any way to rsync absolute symlinks alone?
I want to sync a big folder hierarchy between two machines.
I want to copy the contents of the symlinks if they are absolute, for eg it points to /some/folder/someFile
I want to retain the symlinks if ...
3
votes
2answers
90 views
Creating a local workspace for development/testing
I want to be able to mount, say /home/$USER/workspace to /usr/local/workspace.
Right now I'm using the python package pyfilesystem which uses fuse to do that. My problem is, that inside that mount I ...
3
votes
2answers
532 views
Syncing multiple home folders with dropbox and symlinks
To keep multiple computers synced with dropbox I tried the following.
Approach A.
-Computer 1: Install dropbox, dropbox folder: /Dropbox/
-Computer 1: Create symbolic link in that folder to home ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
Use `ln` to create a missing directory
So I'm writing a small package manager, and a problem I've run into is making the symbolic links to files.
It installs the package to /usr/pkg/name-version, and then reads a file to determine what ...
3
votes
1answer
55 views
How do I batch-export all the content contained in symbolic links? (and then delete them all)
So as an alternative to Recursive scp without following links or creating a giant tar file? (this could be an emergency since the remote files could be deleted any time soon), I'm thinking of deleting ...
3
votes
0answers
206 views
No access to symlink folder on NTFS partition
I am using an NTFS parition for storing data I like to access both from Ubuntu and Windows 7. On my Ubuntu HOME partition, I like to link the folder Assets in order to access it from an application ...
3
votes
2answers
142 views
ln gives different results when run multiple times
I have this simple script to use with seventh sense (it's a lone wolf gamebook reader/player):
#!/bin/bash
GAME_PATH=$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")
SEVENTH_SENSE_PATH=$(echo ...
2
votes
3answers
123 views
What has happened to the file when I entered “mv file.txt ../”?
I wanted to move 'file.txt' one folder up, but instead of mv file.txt ../file.txt I entered mv file.txt ../.
Now the file is gone and I didn't get any error message. So it seems the some action was ...
2
votes
2answers
193 views
How could I make multiple symbolic links for multiple directories, conveniently
lrwxrwxrwx 1 deploy users 20 1월 23 18:15 v122 -> /home/files/video122
lrwxrwxrwx 1 deploy users 20 1월 23 18:15 v123 -> /home/files/video123
lrwxrwxrwx 1 deploy users 20 1월 23 ...
2
votes
3answers
258 views
How universal is the -L (dereference symlink) switch of the 'ls' command?
I have some software that, among other things, needs to:
Assess a file's rwxrwxrwx permissions;
Work under every possible flavor of Unix and Linux you can find in the wild.
Currently, it does that ...
2
votes
3answers
299 views
Find only destination of symlink
For use in a shell-script, I'm looking for a commandline-way to get the destination of a symbolic link. The closest I've come so far is stat -N src, which outputs src -> dst. Of course I could ...
2
votes
2answers
142 views
Create a new link to access all files and folders
I get stuck to create a shell script for a new link something like that
link linkPathName orginalPathName
I want to create a link between a new link and original path; however, both can access ...
2
votes
1answer
596 views
Make cd follow symbolic links
I have my code mounted as an sshfs in my home directory, but the hierarchy is difficult to remember, so I created a symlink in my home directory leading to that directory. Is there a way so that when ...
2
votes
1answer
177 views
Why are there symlinks in /dev? (LVM)
[root@SERVER ~] ls -la /dev/vg/root
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 2012-10-28 10:29 /dev/vg/root -> ../mapper/vg-root
[root@SERVER ~]
QUESTION: Why are there symlinks? Why there couldn't be only 1 ...
2
votes
2answers
597 views
How does /dev/fd relate to /proc/self/fd/?
$ ls -l /dev/stdin /dev/fd/0
lrwx------ 1 tim tim 64 2011-08-07 09:53 /dev/fd/0 -> /dev/pts/2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 2011-08-06 08:14 /dev/stdin -> /proc/self/fd/0
$ ls -l /dev/pts/2 ...
2
votes
2answers
530 views
Why is bash completion of a symlink different than a directory?
I usually do a find with an environment variable as the path when searching for source code. Recently I replaced my environment variable with a symbolic link, and it broke Bash's shell completion. ...
2
votes
2answers
94 views
Resolving symbolic links (pwd)
Say I do the following:
cd /some/path
ln -s /target/path symbolic_name
If then do:
cd /some/path
cd symbolic_name
pwd
I get:
/some/path/symblic_name
and not:
/target/path
Is there a way to ...
2
votes
1answer
91 views
Will symlinks be maintained if the target's path remains the same but everything is transferred to a new disk?
(I think the answer is yes, but I'd like to be certain before I actually do it!)
What I'm trying to do: install a new sd card in my "rooted" Android phone that uses A2SD. The fact that it's an ...
2
votes
1answer
1k views
Why can't list file/directory relative to .. from a symbolic link directory (No such file or directory)?
I have a /usr/tomcat6/logs directory linked to /var/log/tomcat6.
When I changed directory to /usr/tomcat6/logs and try to ls files using a relative pathname ../conf/Catalina/localhost, a No such file ...
2
votes
1answer
158 views
How do you increase MAXSYMLINKS
In a python script, I am creating a bunch of symbolic links chained together.
example: link1->link2->link3->.......->somefile.txt
I was wondering how you can change the max number of symlinks to be ...
2
votes
2answers
232 views
If symlink on NFS points to local disk, will advantage of local disk be lost?
I am working on a development network that uses NFS so that home directories etc can be accessed from any machine. However, NFS is occasionally flaky, causing slowdown/freezing of the machines.
I am ...
2
votes
2answers
308 views
Find incoming symlinks
In Linux, what is the best way to find all symbolic links that point to a given file (regardless of whether the symlink is relative or absolute)? I realize this will require scanning the whole ...
2
votes
2answers
2k views
How do I see what symlinks exist for a given directory?
I want to do some housekeeping in a directory, and I want to see if a given directory has any symlinks pointing to it. I can easily enough see what directory a symlink points to, but now I want to see ...
2
votes
1answer
80 views
Canonical paths: why are they needed?
The issue of resolving symlinks (symbolic links) is often addressed on
this forum, and on others. Related are the concepts of relative,
absolute (or full), and canonical (or resolved) pathnames. Two ...
2
votes
1answer
246 views
Does Windows recognize Linux's symbolic links?
I was just wondering how a Windows system handles symbolic links. My best guess is that it will not recognize them, but I'm not entirely sure.
Also, what do Macs do when confronted by one?
2
votes
1answer
93 views
rsync: how to relocate absolute symlinks?
I've pored over the rsync manpage as well as on several related questions here on serverfault. I've played with -R and -L and -l options, but no luck.
Here is the question: when sending a dir from ...
