hard link soft link

The ln command is responsible for creating links.

If no option is used a hard link will be created:

ln file1 file2

This command will create a hard link called file2.

Hard links doesn’t have any aparent difference when using the ls command.

Use the option -l (long) with the ls command and the number 2 will appear after the permissions and this number is the amount of hard links:

-rw-r--r-- 2 gerep users 0 07.02.2015 00:46 arquivo1
-rw-r--r-- 2 gerep users 0 07.02.2015 00:46 arquivo2

Using ls -i file1 file2 will show something like this:

6817649 file1  6817649 file2

Those numbers are the inode and both files are sharing the same one.

Any changes on file1 will happens on file2 and vice-versa but if one is removed the other isn’t.

Hard links can’t be created for directories, between particions or file system.

Soft links can be created for directories, between particions or file system.

Use the options -s with the ln command to create a soft link:

ln -s file1 file2

Using the option -l (long) will show the letter l before the permissions:

-rw-r--r-- 1 gerep users 8 07.02.2015 00:41 file1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 gerep users 5 07.02.2015 00:41 file2 -> file1

file2 is now showed as a link and the amount is still 1.

The inode value is different, using ls -i file1 file2:

6817649 file1  6816910 file2@

Any changes will be applied in both files but if one is deleted the other one becomes invalid.