A symbolic link point to another file. We can display the link name and the referenced file by ‘ls –l’

#ls –l pf

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root pf->/etc/passwd

file type: l for symbolic link

the content of the symbolic link is the name of the file that is referenced

Syntax:

Ln –s filename [linkname]

Example:

Ln –s /etc/passwd password

There are seven fundamental file type

- : regular file

d : symbolic link

b : block special file

c : character special file

p : named file

s : socket

character special file are used to communicate with hardware one character at a time. Block special file is used to communicate with hardware a block of data at a time : 512 bytes, 1024 bytes, 2048 bytes

ls –l /dev |less { to check c and b files}

named pipe type of file that passes data between processes. It stores no data itself socket file are used for inter process communication.