List all symbolic links on a unix system

Question

How can I find all of the symbolic links on a unix/linux system?

Note: don't exploit this to go round replacing the symlinks with copies of the linked files ... — pjc50, Oct 14 '09 at 13:57

score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 25 '09 at 15:32

19

Use with some caution. It will take a while.

find / -type l

answered Jun 25 '09 at 15:32

Dan Carley

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score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 27 '09 at 17:25

Unless you know the environment, never run "find /", run e.g. "find / /var /home -xdev". Parse the mount or df output for the list of filesystems. Otherwise NFS mounts could make your find take a VERY long time. In a reasonable environment, days or weeks is very possible.

I've seen more than one reasonable system on which a "find /" could not be expected to complete.

Beware of "-fstype nfs -prune". In addition to requiring an ugly (complicated and error-prone) find command, you'll end up with surprises from things like cifs.

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 25 '09 at 15:33

5

# find / -type l

answered Jun 25 '09 at 15:33

MikeyB

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List all symbolic links on a unix system

3 Answers3