Create a symbolic link of directory in Ubuntu

linux terminal symlink
user959129 picture user959129 · Feb 1, 2012 · Viewed 452.5k times · Source

Below is my code for creating a symlink of a directory:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/nginx/conf/ /etc/nginx

I already created the directory /etc/nginx. I just want the contents of the source directory (/usr/local/nginx/conf/) to be in the contents of the target directory (/etc/nginx). But when I execute the code, /etc/nginx contains a directory called conf, instead of the contents of conf. That directory contains the contents I want, but in the wrong location.

Why did it put a directory in the target folder, instead of just putting the contents of the directory in the target folder?

Answer

FatalError picture FatalError · Feb 1, 2012

This is the behavior of ln if the second arg is a directory. It places a link to the first arg inside it. If you want /etc/nginx to be the symlink, you should remove that directory first and run that same command.

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