Linux Command - ln

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ln - create hard link or symbolic(soft) link to files and directories.

Syntax

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ln [OPTIONS] TARGET LINK

Create a link to TARGET. For hard links, TARGET must exist in file system. Hard link is not allowed for directory. Symbolic(soft) links can hold arbitrary text. Symbolic(soft) link is like a shortcut in Windows.

If you rename/delete the TARGET file, the hard link will continue to point to the file in file system. However, the symbolic link will be useless.

Hard links are only valid within the same file system. Symbolic links can span file systems.

Options

Common Option Description
-s, --symbolic make symbolic links instead of hard links
-v, --verbose verbose mode

Examples

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ln file1 link1

file1 and link1 has the same inode number.

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ln -s file1 link2

if you execute ls -li command, the output looks like this. notice the symbolic link has a different inode number than the target file. it also has an arrow to show its target.

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13901482 -rw-r--r-- 2 xing xing   11 Jan  4 01:54 file1
13901482 -rw-r--r-- 2 xing xing   11 Jan  4 01:54 link1
13901487 lrwxrwxrwx 1 xing xing    5 Jan  4 02:10 link2 -> file1
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ln -s ~/Documents/ ~/Desktop/Docs

Create a symbolic link call Docs in ~/Desktop. The destination is /home/username/Documents/

force a existing symbolic(soft) link to point to a new target, dir in this case

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ln -sf dir link2

Reference