When should you use absolute pathnames when creating a symbolic link?

Question

I have read here and in few books that making symbolic links using relative pathway is preferred because if you move link and file, it won't break. I wondering if we should always create relative pathway symbolic links? Like for example if I want to link /etc/passwd to current directory, should I use absolute or relative path?

ln -rs /etc/passwd passwd-symlink will create the relative pathway link but is this necessary?

Answer 1

There is probably not one clear answer for this, and there are many instances where it doesn't particularly matter if a symlink target is relative or absolute.

It is probably a good idea to use a relative symlink if any of the following apply, because the link will remain valid in these situations:

• if the target is in the same directory tree and the whole tree could be moved
• If the target is in the same filesystem, and it gets mounted somewhere else in some future mount (perhaps in a rescue live environment or a container or on another system)

However an absolute link might be better if any of the following apply

• the target is in a radically different directory, where the right number of ../ sequences might not be clear
• you want to point to a very specific file that is not relative to the current directory (for example, a config file in /etc maybe)
• if you want to be very clear what file this points to, when a realtive link might turn into a maze of symlinks pointing to symlinks or targets that traverse symlinks to directories...