person Tute World Team schedule Updated April 28, 2026

Hard Links vs Soft Links

Linux has two types of links — hard links and symbolic (soft) links. They both look similar on the surface, but internally they work completely differently. Understanding them requires understanding inodes, which are how Linux actually tracks files.

The Key Insight: Files Are Not Their Names

What is the "real" identity of a file in Linux? The inode. An inode is a data structure that stores a file's metadata (size, permissions, timestamps, data block locations) and has a unique number. The filename is just a human-readable label that points to an inode — it's stored in the directory, not in the inode itself.

$ ls -i hello.txt
1234567 hello.txt   ← 1234567 is the inode number

$ stat hello.txt
  File: hello.txt
  Size: 42        Inode: 1234567   Links: 1
  ...

Hard Links — Another Name for the Same Inode

A hard link is just another directory entry pointing to the same inode. The file's actual data exists once on disk; two filenames point to it.

# Create a hard link
ln hello.txt hello-hardlink.txt

$ ls -i hello.txt hello-hardlink.txt
1234567 hello.txt
1234567 hello-hardlink.txt   ← same inode number!

$ stat hello.txt
  Inode: 1234567   Links: 2   ← link count increased

What happens when I delete the original? Nothing! Deleting a file just removes one directory entry and decrements the link count. The inode (and data) is only freed when the link count reaches 0. So rm hello.txt leaves hello-hardlink.txt fully intact.

Hard link limitations:

Cannot link across different filesystems (inodes are filesystem-specific)
Cannot link to directories (would create filesystem loops)

Symbolic Links — A File Containing a Path

A symbolic link (symlink) is a special file that contains a text path to another file or directory. When you access a symlink, the kernel follows the path stored in it.

# Create a symlink (ln -s)
ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/python

$ ls -la /usr/local/bin/python
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Jan 1 /usr/local/bin/python -> /usr/bin/python3
# ↑ 'l' = symlink

$ ls -i /usr/local/bin/python /usr/bin/python3
9999 /usr/local/bin/python     ← different inode numbers!
1234 /usr/bin/python3

What happens if I delete the original file a symlink points to? The symlink breaks — it becomes a dangling symlink. When you try to access it, you get "No such file or directory." The symlink itself still exists; it just points to nothing.

Symlink advantages:

Can cross filesystem boundaries
Can link to directories
Can point to relative or absolute paths

When to Use Which

	Hard Link	Symbolic Link
Points to	Inode directly	File path (string)
Cross-filesystem	No	Yes
Link to directories	No	Yes
Breaks if original deleted	No (survives)	Yes (dangling)
Common use case	Backup systems, package managers	Versioning (python → python3.11), /etc/alternatives

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