109
votes
Tips for remembering the order of parameters for ln?
I go by "ln is like cp. The 'source' needs to come first."
- 6,352
48
votes
Accepted
Tips for remembering the order of parameters for ln?
I use the following: ln has a one-argument form (2nd form listed in the manpage) in which only the target is required (because how could ln work at all without knowing the target) and ln creates the ...
- 734
30
votes
Accepted
How to force creation of a symbolic link?
In GNU's ln, there is ln -n, which would allow re-pointing a symlink:
$ mkdir dir1 dir2
$ ln -s dir1 sym
# dir1/
# dir2/
# sym -> dir1/
$ ln -nsf dir2 sym
# dir1/
# dir2/
# sym -> dir2/
BSD ...
23
votes
Too many levels of symbolic links
Symlinks are relative to the parent directory of the link, not of the current directory of the ln process.
When you do:
cd /top/dir
ln -s test/src test/firefox
(where test/firefox is a directory), ...
- 559k
23
votes
Accepted
Why I can't create a hard link from device file in other than /dev directory?
But I could only create a hard link in the /dev directory and it was not possible in other directories.
As shown by the error message, it is not possible to create a hard link across different ...
- 30.4k
20
votes
Create a symbolic link relative to the current directory
I was having the same problem. Google led to this answer but the simplest solution is not documented here:
ln -sT
-T does the trick
man ln:
-T, --no-target-directory
treat LINK_NAME as a ...
- 209
18
votes
Accepted
How to create a folder symlink that has a different name?
You already have a directory at ~/.pm2/logs. Since that directory exists, the symbolic link is put inside it.
Would you want that ~/.pm2/logs is a symbolic link rather than a directory, then you ...
- 341k
17
votes
Create a symbolic link relative to the current directory
ln's behavior with relative paths is unintuitive. To restore sanity, use the -r flag.
cd /run/media/name/exhdd
ln -sr Data/ ~/Data
Explanation:
-r, --relative
create symbolic links ...
16
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between the link and ln commands?
link used solely for hard links, calls the link() system function and doesn't perform error checking when attempting to create the link
ln has error checking and can create hard and soft links
- 309
16
votes
Accepted
What is `ln --no-dereference` supposed to do?
Without -n, both your ln commands would create links inside dir2: if LINK_NAME exists and is a directory or a symlink to a directory, the link is created inside the directory (if possible).
That’s ...
- 450k
14
votes
Too many levels of symbolic links
Use the absolute path instead of the relative path, then it will work.
Eg:
ln -s /home/user/test/src /home/user/test/firefox
- 141
14
votes
Tips for remembering the order of parameters for ln?
Most Unices document the ln command as
ln source target
(I'm omitting options etc. here)
Examples:
The POSIX standard
ln [-fs] [-L|-P] source_file target_file
OpenBSD:
ln [-fhLnPs] source [...
- 341k
12
votes
Why I can't create a hard link from device file in other than /dev directory?
A hard link cannot be used to achieve what you want, because hard links do not work between file systems.
However, you can achieve what you want with the mknod command.
Run ls -l /dev/devicefile. ...
- 527
12
votes
Tips for remembering the order of parameters for ln?
I recently heard a great way to remember this particular thing: a rhyme
Something old,
something new,
something borrowed,
something blue,
and a sixpence in her shoe.
The first verse is what the ...
- 408
11
votes
Accepted
Why can't I create a `hardlink` to a file from a "mount --bind" directory on the same filesystem?
There's a disappointing lack of comments in the code. It's as if no-one ever thought it useful, since the time bind mounts were implemented in v2.4. Surely all you'd need to do is substitute .mnt-&...
- 51.4k
11
votes
Accepted
Is there a way to create a symlink to a non-existent target?
When you run
ln -s nonexistenttarget link
ln doesn’t check whether nonexistenttarget exists, it creates the link, unless link already exists. -f works around the last part by deleting link if ...
- 450k
10
votes
Does `ln -sf` overwrite existing files which are only symbolic links
In UNIX, directories are special (I feel myself channeling The Church Lady from SNL). Directories contain other files, so deleting them requires a different operation. Even when a directory is empty ...
- 595
10
votes
Accepted
ln: create symlink using another symlink
-L only works with hard links; as specified in POSIX:
If the -s option is specified, the -L and -P options shall be silently ignored.
If you have readlink you can use that:
ln -s -- "$(readlink ...
- 450k
9
votes
What is the difference between the link and ln commands?
The link FILENAME LINKNAME command
creates a hard link to a file.
According to the manual page, it is the same as:
ln --directory --no-target-directory FILENAME LINKNAME
See man link or info ...
- 1,452
9
votes
Does `ln -sf` overwrite existing files which are only symbolic links
It can remove files, but directories are not "files".
➜ lab touch file
➜ lab mkdir dir
➜ lab ln -sfT /home file
➜ lab ln -sfT /home dir
ln: dir: cannot overwrite directory
This is seen ...
- 36.4k
9
votes
Accepted
Why change the current directory to the parent directory of a relative symlink before creating it
There are two things to remember:
ln -s (without -r) stores the target name literally as you pass it to it
if you pass a relative target, it resolves relatively to the link name, not your current ...
- 29.2k
9
votes
Accepted
Size of symlink
Sort of, but note that the size of a file is not well-defined at that level of precision.
A symbolic link involves four parts:
The name of the link, which is stored in the directory where it is an ...
8
votes
Why change the current directory to the parent directory of a relative symlink before creating it
If you did
mkdir /tmp/foo
ln -s ../../etc/passwd /tmp/foo
Then access /tmp/foo/passwd would convert to /tmp/foo/../../etc/passwd - ie /etc/passwd
If you did
mkdir /var/tmp/foo
ln -s ../../etc/...
- 46.3k
8
votes
Understanding the usage of ln
It means that if you to ln /path/to/files/* /path/to/some/directory/ or ln -t /path/to/some/directory/ /path/to/files/*, a link to each of the files matching /path/to/files/* will be created in /path/...
- 77.4k
8
votes
Rm hardlink without removing file/directory itself
$ echo 'hello' >name
$ ln name othername
$ ls -l
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 2 kk wheel 6 Jun 25 09:45 name
-rw-r--r-- 2 kk wheel 6 Jun 25 09:45 othername
$ cat othername
hello
$ rm name
$ ls -l
...
- 341k
8
votes
Accepted
What is the meaning of 'ln -sT' in Linux?
ln’s synopsis is as follows:
ln [OPTION]... [-T] TARGET LINK_NAME (1st form)
ln [OPTION]... TARGET (2nd form)
ln [OPTION]... TARGET... DIRECTORY (3rd form)
ln [OPTION]... -t ...
- 450k
8
votes
How to create a folder symlink that has a different name?
As other answers say, there is already a directory there.
To avoid this and instead get an error-message, use the -T option, unfortunately I don't think this is Posix (it is GNU).
From the Gnu ln ...
- 28.3k
7
votes
Making a link using ln -s
A shell will typically break a
ln -s /Backup files/ /link 1
command line into these words:
ln
-s
/Backup
files/
/link
1
From the first word, it will derive the command to execute (something like /...
- 559k
7
votes
How to create a link (ln -s) with an absolute path?
Okay, I found one way to make it work easily:
ln -s `realpath ../dir2/file` link #not perfect
It's not perfect - $( ... ) is preferred to `...` for command substitution, and there's a ...
- 131
7
votes
Tips for remembering the order of parameters for ln?
In case this helps anyone: I've gotten used to thinking of it as "ln what where", which helps me remember that the first argument ("what") is the existing file, the second ("where") is the place to ...
- 1,017
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