Symbolic links to folders whose parent directory has no execute permission

Question

I am trying to do a soft link from one directory to another, the directory I am trying to access I have read and execute. However, its parent directory I do NOT have execute permissions.

Is there a way to do a soft link, to my desired directory without giving me execute permission to the parent directory?

Below is the code I used:

ln -s /home/dir1/dir2/desired_directory symbolic_link_name

the link just comes up as red with grey background.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Although this is not possible with symlinks, you could do it with mount --bind. Note that if the whole point is to circumvent security, then this is probably a very bad idea.

Your command would be

mount --bind /home/dir1/dir2/desired_directory mount_dir

There are a few issues to be aware of:

• The target directory mount_dir must exist before (same as any mount point)
• Root access is required to execute the mount commmand
• The created "link" will not persist after a reboot unless a corresponding line is added to /etc/fstab
• If the origin directory contains mounted file systems, these will not be transferred to the target. The mount points will appear as empty directories.
• Using mount --bind may be considered bad practice because most programs are not aware that the "link" is not a standard directory. For instance it allows the creation of loops in the directory tree which make any tree parsing application (think "ls -R") enter a possibly infinite loop.
• It may be hazardous when combined with recursive delete operations. See for instance Yet another warning about mount --bind and rm -rf.

Answer 2

Symbolic links are not a way to circumvent permissions set on their targets. No, there is no way to do what you want. If it was possible it would be a serious security issue.