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Dell Storage Manager 2020 R1 Administrator's Guide

Using Symbolic Links

A symbolic link is a special type of file that contains a reference to another file or directory in the form of an absolute or relative path and that affects path name resolution. Symbolic links operate transparently for most operations: programs that read or write to files named by a symbolic link behave as if operating directly on the target file. The symbolic link contains a text string that is automatically interpreted and followed by the operating system as a path to another file or directory.

Local file system symbolic links are available in NTFS starting with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, but the symbolic links over SMB are available only with SMB2.

Limitations on Using Symbolic Links

When using symbolic links, note the following limitations:

  • SMB1, FTP, and NFS do not support symbolic links.
  • Symbolic links are limited to 2,000 bytes.
  • User and directory quotas do not apply to symbolic links.
  • FluidFS space counting does not count symbolic link data as regular file data.
  • Symbolic links are not followed when accessed from snapshot view. They appear as regular files or folders.
  • If a relative symbolic link was moved to another location, it might become invalid.
  • Cloning SMB symbolic links is not supported.

File Access

Symbolic links are enabled by default. You cannot configure symbolic links in FluidFS, but you can access them using the following Microsoft tools:

  • mklink – Basic utility used to create both symbolic and hard links (hard links are not supported over SMB, but locally only)
  • fsutil – File system utility that enables working with reparse points and modifying symbolic links policy

For more information about symbolic links, go to https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365680%28v=vs.85%29.aspx.


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