Link two Directories

[George Nikoloudis_1]

Hello Experts
Can you tell me how can I link two directories?
e.g.

/mnt1a/george/data->mnt2a/root/data

[Deepak Extross]

Hi,

ln -s

[Frederic Sevestre]

Hi,

ln -s /mnt2a/root/data /mnt1a/george/data

regards
Fr??d??ric

[Etienne Holm]

Hi
go to the dir you wnat the linked dir to be
cd mnt2a/root
then do
ln -s /mnt1a/george/data data

[Steven Sim Kok Leong · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Assuming that mnt2a/root/data currently contains the data and /mnt1a/george/data is the link,

If you want a hard-link,

# ln /mnt2a/root/data /mnt1a/george/data

If you want a soft-link,

# ln -s /mnt2a/root/data /mnt1a/george/data

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong
Brainbench MVP for Unix Admin
http://www.brainbench.com

[federico_3]

to get /mnt1a/george/data-> /mnt2a/root/data
type:

ln -s /mnt2a/root/data /mnt1a/george/data

[Darrell Allen]

Hi George,

One minor point to add: If /mnt1a/george/data already exists, the ln (with or without -s) command will fail.

Darrell

[Roger Baptiste]

<mnt2a/root/data >>

cd /mnt1a/george
ll data (just to confirm there is no such directory existing; if it is move or remove it)
ln -s data /mnt2a/root/data

Another point, do not worry about the permissions of /mnt1a/george/data . Irrespective of what it is the permission of the actual directory will be counted during access.

HTH
raj

[Victor_5]

Regarding link, there are hard link and symbolic link, for directory link, you only can use the later one.

Use the ln command with -s to create a symbolic link. The first argument identifies the existing file that you wish to link to. Additional arguments specify the path names of the symbolic links you wish to create to the existing file.

In your case, it is
ln -s /mnt2a/root/date /mnt1a/george/date

Shawn

[Sanjay_6]

Hi George,

Try,

ln -s /mnt2a/root/data /mnt1a/george/data

hope this helps.

Regds

[Darrell Allen]

Hi all,

My earlier reply definitely was not a good one. Shawn points out correctly that ln (without -s) will fail if the source is a directory. You must use ln -s on directories.

To clarify (hopefully) the point I was trying to make earlier:
ln -s will fail if the destination exists and is a file. ln -s will succeed if the destination exists and is a directory however the link will be created subordinate to the destination directory. Examples:

# ll
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 96 Dec 6 11:39 d
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 0 Dec 6 11:40 e
drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 96 Dec 6 11:40 f
# ln d e
ln: directory
# ln d f
ln: directory
# ln -s d e
ln: e exists
# ln -s d f
# ll
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 96 Dec 6 11:39 d
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 0 Dec 6 11:40 e
drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 96 Dec 6 11:40 f
# ll f
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root sys 1 Dec 6 11:40 d -> d

Sorry for my earlier poor post. I added confusion to the issue instead of clarification.

Darrell

[Kurtkarl]

hi,

for hard link
ln / /
for soft (symbolic) link
ln -s / /

note: ln does not create hard links across
filesystems.
joey

[Ron Freeland]

Hello

The manpage for ln shows as if 2 directories can be hard linked, but in the manpage it states: "The ln command does not permit hard links to a directory."
To link directories the -s option must be used.