A symbolic link, also known as a symlink or soft link, is a special type of file that points to another file or directory by its name. A symbolic link can point to a file or directory on the same or different file system, as long as the target is accessible. For example, you can create a symbolic link to a file on a USB drive or a network share, as long as the device is mounted or the connection is established. However, if the target of the symbolic link is moved, renamed, or deleted, the link becomes broken and does not work. To create a symbolic link, you can use the ln command with the -s or --symbolic option, followed by the target name and the link name. For example, ln -s /mnt/usb/file.txt link.txt creates a symbolic link named link.txt that points to the file.txt on the USB drive mounted at /mnt/usb.
The other options are not true about links in a Linux file system. A symbolic link can point to a directory as well as a file. A hard link, which is a direct reference to the same data as another file, can only point to a file and not a directory. A hard link cannot span across different file systems, because it depends on the inode number, which is unique within a file system. When the target of the symbolic link is moved, the link is not automatically updated, but becomes broken. Any user can create hard links, as long as they have the permission to read and write the target file and the link directory.
References:
Linux Essentials - Linux Professional Institute (LPI)
Ln Command in Linux (Create Symbolic Links) | Linuxize
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