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NAME

       symlink - symbolic link handling

DESCRIPTION

       Symbolic  links  are  files  that  act  as  pointers  to other files.  To understand their
       behavior, you must first understand how hard links work.

       A hard link to a file is  indistinguishable  from  the  original  file  because  it  is  a
       reference  to  the  object  underlying the original filename.  (To be precise: each of the
       hard links to a file is a reference to the same inode number, where an inode number is  an
       index  into the inode table, which contains metadata about all files on a filesystem.  See
       stat(2).)  Changes to a file are independent of the name used to reference the file.  Hard
       links  may  not  refer  to  directories  (to  prevent  the possibility of loops within the
       filesystem tree, which would confuse  many  programs)  and  may  not  refer  to  files  on
       different filesystems (because inode numbers are not unique across filesystems).

       A symbolic link is a special type of file whose contents are a string that is the pathname
       of another file, the file to which the link refers.  (The contents of a symbolic link  can
       be read using readlink(2).)  In other words, a symbolic link is a pointer to another name,
       and not to an underlying object.  For this reason, symbolic links may refer to directories
       and may cross filesystem boundaries.

       There  is no requirement that the pathname referred to by a symbolic link should exist.  A
       symbolic link that refers to a pathname that does not exist is said to be a dangling link.

       Because a symbolic link and its referenced object coexist in the  filesystem  name  space,
       confusion  can  arise in distinguishing between the link itself and the referenced object.
       On historical  systems,  commands  and  system  calls  adopted  their  own  link-following
       conventions  in a somewhat ad-hoc fashion.  Rules for a more uniform approach, as they are
       implemented on Linux and other systems, are outlined here.  It  is  important  that  site-
       local  applications  also  conform  to  these  rules, so that the user interface can be as
       consistent as possible.

   Magic links
       There is a special class of symbolic-link-like objects known as "magic links",  which  can
       be  found  in  certain pseudofilesystems such as proc(5) (examples include /proc/[pid]/exe
       and /proc/[pid]/fd/*).  Unlike normal symbolic links, magic links are not resolved through
       pathname-expansion,   but   instead   act   as  direct  references  to  the  kernel's  own
       representation of a file handle.  As such, these magic links allow users to  access  files
       which cannot be referenced with normal paths (such as unlinked files still referenced by a
       running program ).

       Because they can bypass ordinary mount_namespaces(7)-based restrictions, magic links  have
       been used as attack vectors in various exploits.

   Symbolic link ownership, permissions, and timestamps
       The owner and group of an existing symbolic link can be changed using lchown(2).  The only
       time that the ownership of a symbolic link matters is when the link is  being  removed  or
       renamed in a directory that has the sticky bit set (see stat(2)).

       The  last  access and last modification timestamps of a symbolic link can be changed using
       utimensat(2) or lutimes(3).

       On Linux, the permissions of an ordinary symbolic link are not used in any operations; the
       permissions  are always 0777 (read, write, and execute for all user categories), and can't
       be changed.

       However, magic links do not follow this rule.  They can have a non-0777 mode, though  this
       mode is not currently used in any permission checks.

   Obtaining a file descriptor that refers to a symbolic link
       Using  the  combination  of  the  O_PATH  and  O_NOFOLLOW  flags  to open(2) yields a file
       descriptor that can be passed as the dirfd argument in system calls  such  as  fstatat(2),
       fchownat(2),  fchmodat(2),  linkat(2),  and  readlinkat(2),  in  order  to  operate on the
       symbolic link itself (rather than the file to which it refers).

       By default (i.e., if the AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW flag is not specified), if name_to_handle_at(2)
       is  applied  to a symbolic link, it yields a handle for the symbolic link (rather than the
       file to which it refers).  One can then obtain a file descriptor  for  the  symbolic  link
       (rather  than  the  file to which it refers) by specifying the O_PATH flag in a subsequent
       call  to  open_by_handle_at(2).   Again,  that  file  descriptor  can  be  used   in   the
       aforementioned system calls to operate on the symbolic link itself.

   Handling of symbolic links by system calls and commands
       Symbolic  links are handled either by operating on the link itself, or by operating on the
       object referred to by the link.  In the latter case, an application or system call is said
       to  follow  the link.  Symbolic links may refer to other symbolic links, in which case the
       links are dereferenced until an object that is not a symbolic link is  found,  a  symbolic
       link  that  refers  to a file which does not exist is found, or a loop is detected.  (Loop
       detection is done by placing an upper limit on the number of links that may  be  followed,
       and an error results if this limit is exceeded.)

       There are three separate areas that need to be discussed.  They are as follows:

       •  Symbolic links used as filename arguments for system calls.

       •  Symbolic links specified as command-line arguments to utilities that are not traversing
          a file tree.

       •  Symbolic links encountered by  utilities  that  are  traversing  a  file  tree  (either
          specified on the command line or encountered as part of the file hierarchy walk).

       Before describing the treatment of symbolic links by system calls and commands, we require
       some terminology.  Given a pathname of the form a/b/c, the part preceding the final  slash
       (i.e., a/b) is called the dirname component, and the part following the final slash (i.e.,
       c) is called the basename component.

   Treatment of symbolic links in system calls
       The first area is symbolic links used as filename arguments for system calls.

       The treatment of symbolic links within a pathname passed to a system call is as follows:

       (1)  Within the dirname component of a pathname, symbolic links  are  always  followed  in
            nearly  every  system  call.  (This is also true for commands.)  The one exception is
            openat2(2), which provides flags that can be used to explicitly prevent following  of
            symbolic links in the dirname component.

       (2)  Except  as  noted  below,  all  system  calls  follow  symbolic links in the basename
            component of a pathname.  For example, if there were  a  symbolic  link  slink  which
            pointed  to a file named afile, the system call open("slink" ...) would return a file
            descriptor referring to the file afile.

       Various system calls do not follow links in the basename  component  of  a  pathname,  and
       operate  on  the  symbolic link itself.  They are: lchown(2), lgetxattr(2), llistxattr(2),
       lremovexattr(2), lsetxattr(2), lstat(2), readlink(2), rename(2), rmdir(2), and unlink(2).

       Certain other system calls optionally follow symbolic links in the basename component of a
       pathname.      They     are:    faccessat(2),    fchownat(2),    fstatat(2),    linkat(2),
       name_to_handle_at(2), open(2),  openat(2),  open_by_handle_at(2),  and  utimensat(2);  see
       their manual pages for details.  Because remove(3) is an alias for unlink(2), that library
       function also does not follow symbolic links.  When rmdir(2)  is  applied  to  a  symbolic
       link, it fails with the error ENOTDIR.

       link(2)   warrants   special  discussion.   POSIX.1-2001  specifies  that  link(2)  should
       dereference oldpath if it is a symbolic link.  However,  Linux  does  not  do  this.   (By
       default, Solaris is the same, but the POSIX.1-2001 specified behavior can be obtained with
       suitable compiler options.)   POSIX.1-2008  changed  the  specification  to  allow  either
       behavior in an implementation.

   Commands not traversing a file tree
       The  second  area  is  symbolic  links,  specified  as command-line filename arguments, to
       commands which are not traversing a file tree.

       Except as noted below, commands follow symbolic links  named  as  command-line  arguments.
       For  example, if there were a symbolic link slink which pointed to a file named afile, the
       command cat slink would display the contents of the file afile.

       It is important to realize that this rule includes commands which may optionally  traverse
       file  trees;  for  example,  the  command  chown  file is included in this rule, while the
       command chown -R file, which performs a tree traversal, is not.  (The latter is  described
       in the third area, below.)

       If  it  is  explicitly  intended  that the command operate on the symbolic link instead of
       following the symbolic link—for example,  it  is  desired  that  chown  slink  change  the
       ownership  of  the  file  that  slink is, whether it is a symbolic link or not—then the -h
       option should be used.  In the above example, chown root slink would change the  ownership
       of  the file referred to by slink, while chown -h root slink would change the ownership of
       slink itself.

       There are some exceptions to this rule:

       •  The mv(1) and rm(1) commands do not follow  symbolic  links  named  as  arguments,  but
          respectively attempt to rename and delete them.  (Note, if the symbolic link references
          a file via a relative path, moving it to another directory may very well  cause  it  to
          stop working, since the path may no longer be correct.)

       •  The  ls(1)  command is also an exception to this rule.  For compatibility with historic
          systems (when ls(1) is not doing a tree walk—that is, -R option is not specified),  the
          ls(1)  command  follows  symbolic  links  named  as arguments if the -H or -L option is
          specified, or if the -F, -d, or -l options are not specified.  (The  ls(1)  command  is
          the  only command where the -H and -L options affect its behavior even though it is not
          doing a walk of a file tree.)

       •  The file(1) command is also an exception to this rule.  The file(1)  command  does  not
          follow  symbolic  links  named as argument by default.  The file(1) command does follow
          symbolic links named as argument if the -L option is specified.

   Commands traversing a file tree
       The following  commands  either  optionally  or  always  traverse  file  trees:  chgrp(1),
       chmod(1), chown(1), cp(1), du(1), find(1), ls(1), pax(1), rm(1), and tar(1).

       It  is  important  to  realize  that  the  following rules apply equally to symbolic links
       encountered during the file tree traversal  and  symbolic  links  listed  as  command-line
       arguments.

       The  first  rule  applies  to  symbolic links that reference files other than directories.
       Operations that apply to symbolic  links  are  performed  on  the  links  themselves,  but
       otherwise the links are ignored.

       The  command  rm -r  slink  directory  will  remove  slink,  as well as any symbolic links
       encountered in the tree traversal of directory, because symbolic links may be removed.  In
       no case will rm(1) affect the file referred to by slink.

       The  second rule applies to symbolic links that refer to directories.  Symbolic links that
       refer to directories are never followed by default.   This  is  often  referred  to  as  a
       "physical"  walk,  as  opposed  to  a  "logical"  walk (where symbolic links that refer to
       directories are followed).

       Certain conventions are (should be) followed as consistently as possible by commands  that
       perform file tree walks:

       •  A  command  can  be  made  to  follow  any  symbolic  links  named on the command line,
          regardless of the type of file  they  reference,  by  specifying  the  -H  (for  "half-
          logical")  flag.   This  flag is intended to make the command-line name space look like
          the logical name  space.   (Note,  for  commands  that  do  not  always  do  file  tree
          traversals, the -H flag will be ignored if the -R flag is not also specified.)

          For  example,  the command chown -HR user slink will traverse the file hierarchy rooted
          in the file pointed to by slink.  Note, the -H  is  not  the  same  as  the  previously
          discussed  -h flag.  The -H flag causes symbolic links specified on the command line to
          be dereferenced for the purposes of both the action to be performed and the tree  walk,
          and  it is as if the user had specified the name of the file to which the symbolic link
          pointed.

       •  A command can be made to follow any symbolic links named on the command line,  as  well
          as  any symbolic links encountered during the traversal, regardless of the type of file
          they reference, by specifying the -L (for "logical") flag.  This flag  is  intended  to
          make  the entire name space look like the logical name space.  (Note, for commands that
          do not always do file tree traversals, the -L flag will be ignored if the  -R  flag  is
          not also specified.)

          For  example,  the  command  chown -LR  user  slink  will  change the owner of the file
          referred to by slink.  If slink refers to a directory, chown  will  traverse  the  file
          hierarchy  rooted  in  the  directory that it references.  In addition, if any symbolic
          links are encountered in any file tree that chown traverses, they will  be  treated  in
          the same fashion as slink.

       •  A  command  can  be  made  to  provide  the  default behavior by specifying the -P (for
          "physical") flag.  This flag is intended to make the entire name space  look  like  the
          physical name space.

       For  commands that do not by default do file tree traversals, the -H, -L, and -P flags are
       ignored if the -R flag is not also specified.  In addition, you may specify  the  -H,  -L,
       and  -P  options more than once; the last one specified determines the command's behavior.
       This is intended to permit you to alias commands to behave one way or the other, and  then
       override that behavior on the command line.

       The ls(1) and rm(1) commands have exceptions to these rules:

       •  The  rm(1)  command  operates on the symbolic link, and not the file it references, and
          therefore never follows a symbolic link.  The rm(1) command does not  support  the  -H,
          -L, or -P options.

       •  To  maintain  compatibility  with  historic  systems,  the  ls(1) command acts a little
          differently.  If you do not specify the -F,  -d,  or  -l  options,  ls(1)  will  follow
          symbolic  links  specified  on  the  command  line.  If the -L flag is specified, ls(1)
          follows all symbolic links, regardless of their type, whether specified on the  command
          line or encountered in the tree walk.

SEE ALSO

       chgrp(1),  chmod(1),  find(1),  ln(1),  ls(1), mv(1), namei(1), rm(1), lchown(2), link(2),
       lstat(2),  readlink(2),  rename(2),  symlink(2),  unlink(2),   utimensat(2),   lutimes(3),
       path_resolution(7)