How to symlink a file in Linux?

Question

I want to make a symbolic link in Linux. I have written this bash command where the first path is the folder I want link into and the second path is the compiled source. ln -s '+basebuild+'/IpDome-kernel/kernel /home/build/sandbox/gen2/basebuild/IpDome-kernel/kernal Is this correct?

Answer 1

You seem to have the general command structure correct. That is ln -s (for symbolic link) source_file myfile.

However, your paths seem off. I presume it is not working. I recommend that you carefully check your paths. You seem to be trying to make a symbolic link to the kernel and create a link called kernel. I think you might be getting a name conflict. I would suggest carefully examining your paths. The '+basebuil+' seems odd as well as the kernel to kernel connection. I hope that helps.

Answer 2

The general usage pattern for creating sym-links is:

ln -s SOURCE TARGET

... where SOURCE is your existing file/dir and TARGET is the to-be-created sym-link (pointer).

So for example, I just executed the following command:

ln -s $HOME /tmp

My user name (and $HOME directory name) on this system is "lji", so when the line above successfully executed, a 'long listing' of what was created showed me the following:

$ ls -l /tmp/lji

lrwxrwxrwx 1 lji None 9 Apr 25 07:15 /tmp/lji -> /home/lji

(notice the "l" first character above before the permission mask above - showing us that /tmp/lji is recognized as a link)

Now I have another access path to my $HOME directory ... when I execute:

cd /tmp/lji

I find the same content there as I do under $HOME.

Think of a sym-link as a pointer [path], and the "ln" command line syntax will make more sense.

It's kinda like a Windows OS "shortcut" . If fact, Windows implements the "ShortCut" entity as a sym-link.