Working with Links in Linux

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Working with Links in Linux

Understanding how soft and hard links work within Linux is another important skill for a system administrator. This learning activity will help you practice creating these two types of links on a file system, and explore the differences between the two.

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Lab Info

Level

Beginner

Last updated

Sep 05, 2025

Duration

30m

Challenge

Create a Symbolic (soft) Link
Using the ln command, create a symbolic link from the file /etc/redhat-release to a new link file named release in the cloud_user's home directory. Using the ls command, verify that the link is valid. Use the cat command on the /home/cloud_user/release file to verify its contents.

Can be completed with:
```
ln -s /etc/redhat-release release
```
```
ls -l
```
```
cat /etc/redhat-release
```
Challenge

Check the Inode Numbers for the Link
Using the ls command, first look at the inode number for the /home/cloud_user/release link and then check the inode number for /etc/redhat-release. They should be different, as the symbolic link is just a new file system entry that references the original file.

Viewing the inodes can be done via:
```
ls -i release
```
```
ls -i /etc/redhat-release
```
Challenge

Create a Hard Link
Create a directory called docs in your home directory. Copy the /etc/services file into this new docs directory. Using the ln command again, create a hard link from /home/cloud_user/docs/services to a link file named /home/cloud_user/services. Use the ls command to verify the link's inode number, and the inode number for the original /etc/services file.

The commands to accomplish this task are:
```
mkdir docs
```
```
cp /etc/services docs/
```
```
ln docs/services services
```
```
ls -l
```
```
ls -i services
```
```
ls -i docs/services
```
Challenge

Attempt to Create a Hard Link Across File Systems
Using the ln command, attempt to make a hard link from /home/cloud_user/docs/services to /opt/services (you will have write permissions to this location). Why does this not work?

To see the behavior of this task, try the following:
```
lsblk 
```
```
ln docs/services /opt/services
```
Challenge

Attempt to Create a Symbolic Link Across File Systems
Once more using the ln command, attempt to create a soft link from /etc/redhat-release to /opt/release. Why does this work, but creating a hard link fails? Turn the system over for grading when complete.

Creating the soft link should succeed, even across filesystems, like so:
```
sudo ln -s /etc/redhat-release /opt/release
```
```
ls -i /etc/redhat-release
```
```
ls -i /opt/release
```

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