UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Is it possible to hard link multiple files at the same time? I tried to use wildcards with no luck. This is what I tried.

Code:

ln /home/hardlink/* /home/hardlink1

As long as the second argument is a directory, it works for me on linux.
Any non-regular files in the source file list return an error, but all the regular files are still linked ok.

It didn't work for me on a CentOS system . What I tried above.

Works fine on Redhat 9 through to Redhat Enterprise Linux 6, so I would have thought it would work on CentOS

Code:

[root@rh9 root]#  cd /tmp
[root@rh9 tmp]# mkdir /tmp/a
[root@rh9 tmp]# cd /tmp/a
[root@rh9 a]# touch a b c d
[root@rh9 a]# mkdir e
[root@rh9 a]# ln /tmp/a/* /tmp/a/e
ln: `/tmp/a/e': hard link not allowed for directory
[root@rh9 a]# ls -l e
total 0
-rw-r--r--    2 root     root            0 Jan 14 09:13 a
-rw-r--r--    2 root     root            0 Jan 14 09:13 b
-rw-r--r--    2 root     root            0 Jan 14 09:13 c
-rw-r--r--    2 root     root            0 Jan 14 09:13 d
[root@rh9 a]#

Any chance we can see a listing of the directory (including the inode numbers) after expanding "*" in Shell.

Code:

ls -liad *

As others have noted, you cannot link a file to a directory or vice versa. You also cannot link a directory to a directory. Have a look at the design of the Unix File System and you will see why.


When using typing powerful unix commands for the first time always work on an expendable filesystem on a development server pre-armed with a full backup. Some of you recent posts worry me. Have you attended a unix Systems Administration course?

The ln command works similarly to cp. When cp input/* output would work, so should ln, roughly speaking. Though ln may be more careful what it overwrites(though don't depend on that!)

The big tip with working with links is to read about and fully understand the "-follow" and "-xdev" parameters to the unix "find" command.