Slackware Linux Essentials
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9.3 Links

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Links are pointers between files. With links, you can have files exist in many -locations and be accessible by many names. There are two types of links: hard and -soft.

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Hard links are names for a particular file. They can only exist within a single -filesystem and are only removed when the real name is removed from the system. These are -useful in some cases, but many users find the soft link to be more versatile.

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The soft link, also called a symbolic link, can point to a file outside of its -filesystem. It is actually a small file containing the information it needs. You can add -and remove soft links without affecting the actual file. And since a symbolic link is -actually a small file containing its own information, they can even point at a directory. -It's rather common to have /var/tmp actually be a symbolic link -to /tmp for example.

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Links do not have their own set of permissions or ownerships, but instead reflect -those of the file they point to. Slackware uses mostly soft links. Here is a common -example:

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-% ls -l /bin/sh
-lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root     4 Apr  6 12:34 /bin/sh -> bash
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The sh shell under Slackware is actually bash. Removing links is done using rm. The -ln command is used to create links. These commands will be -discussed in more depth in Chapter 10.

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It's very important to be careful about symlinks in particular. Once, I was working on -a machine that was consistently failing to back-up to tape each night. Two symlinks had -been made to directories beneath each other. The back-up software kept appending those -same directories to the tape until it was out of space. Normally, a set of checks will -prevent creating a symlink in this situation, but ours was a special case.

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