Symbolic links are a link on Linux systems that point to another file or folder. It means that navigating to one of these files may run a file that exists somewhere else, or it may bring you to a folder somewhere completely different, based on how it is defined. For example, a symbolic link called /etc/link maybe defined to bring you to /var/www/httpdocs.

Types of Symbolic Links on Linux and Mac

There are two types of symbolic links on Linux systems – hard links, and soft links.