How does a symbolic link work?

A symbolic link, also termed a soft link, is a special kind of file that points to another file, much like a shortcut in Windows or a Macintosh alias. Unlike a hard link, a symbolic link does not contain the data in the target file. It simply points to another entry somewhere in the file system.

How does symlink work Linux?

A symbolic link is a small file that contains the location (i.e. path and filename) of a target file, with a flag in the directory entry indicating that it’s a symlink. When you open a symlink, the OS will follow the location to find the target file. … From now on the process uses that inode to read/write to the file.