How to Create Hard and Symbolic Links in Linux

 

How to Create Hard Links in Linux

To create a hard links in Linux, we will use ln utility. For example, the following command creates a hard link named tp to the file topprocs.sh.

$ ls -l
$ ln topprocs.sh tp
$ ls -l

Create a Hard Link to File

Looking at the output above, using ls command, the new file is not indicated as a link, it is shown as a regular file. This implies that tp is just another regular executable file that points to the same underlying inode as topprocs.sh.

To make a hard link directly into a soft link, use the -P flag like this.

$ ln -P topprocs.sh tp

How to Create Symbolic Links in Linux

To create a symbolic links in Linux, we will use same ln utility with -s switch. For example, the following command creates a symbolic link named topps.sh to the file topprocs.sh.

$ ln -s ~/bin/topprocs.sh topps.sh
$ ls -l topps.sh

Create a Symbolic Link to File

From the above output, you can see from the file permissions section that topps.sh is a link indicated by l: meaning it is a link to another filename.

If the symbolic link already exist, you may get an error, to force the operation (remove exiting symbolic link), use the -f option.

$ ln -s ~/bin/topprocs.sh topps.sh
$ ln -sf ~/bin/topprocs.sh topps.sh

Forcefully Create Symbolic Link

To enable verbose mode, add the -v flag to prints the name of each linked file in the output.

$ ln -sfv ~/bin/topprocs.sh topps.sh
$ $ls -l topps.sh