creating a symbolic link from /tmp

Question

What did I do wrong while creating a symbolic link to /tmp?

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp/
$ ln -s /mnt/tmp/ /tmp/
$ ls -alh /tmp
total 12K
drwxrwxrwt  3 root   root   4.0K Sep 28 05:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 root   root   4.0K Aug 26 05:44 ..
lrwxrwxrwx  1 ubuntu ubuntu    9 Sep 28 04:53 tmp -> /mnt/tmp/
drwx------  6 ubuntu ubuntu 4.0K Sep 28 04:54 tmpDcI8v2

Answer 1

Nothing went wrong. You used the 3rd form of ln syntax:

You ordered to create a symbolic link to /mnt/tmp and place it in /tmp.

As /tmp is an existing directory, system will create the link with the same name as the target, i.e. tmp inside that directory.

You end up with a symbolic link /tmp/tmp pointing to the /mnt/tmp which is what you see in the directory listing.

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There are two things that might have confused you:

• the order of arguments in ln is: first the target, then the link name
• if you provide an existing directory instead of the link name, ln will create a link inside that directory