Symlinks (also known as ‘symbolic’ or ‘soft’ links) are special type of files which reference to another folder or file.
Here is how to create a symlink from Linux terminal:
Open Linux Terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and run the following command:
$ ln -s original_file_path new_symlink_file_path
Then you can verify the create soft link by running the following command:
$ ls -l original_file_path new_symlink_file_path
Here is an example:
Assume we have a git repository for a WordPress Plugin (/home/tishonator/tishonator_git/plugins/fancy-slider) where we store its files and we have a local WordPress installation.
In order to be able to use the plugin on local WordPress site, we need to upload plugins files to /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/fancy-slider
Instead of copy-paste files, we can create a softlink on WordPress plugins folder which is a reference to the git repository folder:
$ ln -s /home/tishonator/tishonator_git/plugins/fancy-slider /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/fancy-slider