How to Create Hard and Symbolic Links in Linux?

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

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

$ ln -P topprocs.sh tp

To Create Symbolic Links in Linux

To create a symbolic link 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

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

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

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