How to Create Symbolic Links Using the ln Command

Symbolic links are utilized just like shortcuts. They can be used to make really long paths shorter and a way to get easy access to files on other partitions and drives.

This guide shows everything you need to know about symbolic links but you can check out the manual page for the ln command for the other switches.

There are two types of links available:

• Hard links: This is a link to an actual file on the Linux system.
• Soft links: This is similar to a Windows "shortcut", which points to the original file location. This is also known as a "symbolic" link.

Before you begin, it's good to know what hard links are and why you would use them. Later in this article, you'll learn about soft links or symbolic links as they are more commonly known.

Each file in your file system is identified by a number called an inode. Most of the time you won't need to care about this number, but the importance of it comes to light when you want to create a hard link.

A hard link lets you assign a different name to a file in a different location, but it's still exactly the same file. The key that links the files together is the inode number. The great thing about hard links is that they don't take up any extra physical hard drive space.

A hard link makes it easier to categorize files. For instance, imagine you have a folder full of photos. You could create one folder called vacation pictures, another folder called kids photos, and a third one called pet photos.

It's possible that you'll have some photos that fit into all three categories because they were taken while you were on vacation with your children and dogs.

Organizing Files with Hard Links

You could put the main file in the vacation pictures photos folder and then create a hard link to that photo in the kids' photos category. Then, you can make another hard link in the pet photos category — and no extra disk space is used to store duplicates of the same photo.

All you have to do is enter the following command to create a hard link:

ln /path/to/file /path/to/hardlink

If you had a photo called BrightonBeach in the vacation photos folder and you wanted to create a link in the kids' photos folder, you would use the following command:

ln /holidayphotos/BrightonBeach.jpg /kidsphotos/BrightonBeach.jpg

You can tell how many files link to the same inode by using the ls command as follows:

ls -lt

The output will be something like -rw-r--r-- 1 username groupname date filename.

The first part of the output shows the user's permissions, but the important part is the number after the permissions and before the username. 

If the number is 1 it is the only file pointing to a particular inode (i.e. it is not linked). If the number is greater than one then it is hard linked by 2 or more files.

A symbolic link is like a shortcut from one file to another. The contents of a symbolic link are the address of the actual file or folder that is being linked to.

The benefit of using symbolic links is that you can link to files and folders on other partitions and on other devices.

Another difference between a hard link and a symbolic link is that a hard link must be created against a file that already exists, whereas a soft link can be created in advance of the file it is pointing to existing.

Creating a Symbolic Link

To create a symbolic link use the following syntax:

ln -s /path/to/file /path/to/link

If you are worried about overwriting a link that already exists you can use the -b switch as follows:

ln -s -b /path/to/file /path/to/link

This will create a backup of the link if it already exists by creating the same filename but with a tilde at the end (~). If a file already exists with the same name as the symbolic link you will receive an error.

You can force the link to overwrite the file by using the following command:

ln -s -f /path/to/file /path/to/link

You probably don't want to use the -f switch without the -b switch as you will lose the original file.

Another alternative is to receive a message asking whether you want to overwrite a file if it already exists. You can do this with the following command:

ln -s -i /path/to/file /path/to/link

Most modern File Explorer applications in Linux let you create a symbolic link using the visual GUI. For example, using Thunar File Manager, inside any folder, just right click and select Create symlink.

This creates what looks like a new folder. It's actually a symbolic link pointing the the folder where you created it. You can cut and paste this symlink anywhere else you like, and when you open it, it will always open the original folder where you created it.

Run the following ls command:

ls -lt

If a file is a symbolic link you will see something like this:

myshortcut -> myfile

You can use a symbolic link to navigate to another folder as explained above.

For example, imagine you have a link to /home/music/rock/alicecooper/heystoopid called heystoopid.

You can run the following cd command to navigate to that folder using the following command:

cd heystoopid