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<TITLE>The Answer Gang 65: How can you do a recursive search to find broken symbolic links?</TITLE>
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<H3 align="left"><img src="../../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>How can you do a recursive search to find broken symbolic links?</H3>
<p><strong>From bandido
</strong></p>
<p align="right"><strong>Answered By Ben Okopnik, Faber Fedor, Mike Orr
<br></strong></p>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
I found the odd broken link after a few upgrades, and was wondering how
can I hunt down any other such beasties, 'ls' doesn't have any suitable
way to delimit, and poking about in man pages for find etc made me quite
nautious.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
> [Faber]
Perhaps you should take some Dramamine.
<IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":-)"
height="24" width="20" align="middle"> The man pages are you friend. If you do a "man find" and then type "<TT>/link</TT>" (that will do a search on the word link) you'll find all kinds of references to the work "link" (the owrk "link" will be highlighted). Scroll down a couple of pages and you'll find the "type" option.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, to find all the links on your system, you would type
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><code><font color="#000033"><br> find / -type l
</font></code></blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Simple, no?
<IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":-)"
height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
> [Ben]
No. The querent was asking how to find <EM>broken</EM> links, not all links.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
What's needed here is the "symlinks" program, written by Mark Lord. It will
find and classify all the links, hard and soft, in the filesystem. If you
want to see all the dangling (i.e., broken) links on your system, just
type
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><code><font color="#000033"><br>symlinks -r / | grep ^dangling # Recursive search starting from /
</font></code></blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
If you want to delete all the broken ones, just enter
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><code><font color="#000033"><br>symlinks -dr / # Recurse and delete broken links starting from /
</font></code></blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
For me personally, this wouldn't work too well. I use dangling links as
placeholders; as an example, I've disabled NFS during the boot procedure by
"breaking" the symlink in "<TT>/etc/rc2.d</TT>":
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><code><font color="#000033"><br>S19nfs-common -> ../init.d/nfs-common # Original link
<br>
<br>S19nfs-common -> ../init.d/nfs-commonXXX # Dangling!
</font></code></blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
If I should need to restore NFS, a 5-second fix will do it, without having
to figure out what directory the link should go into, where in the process
it should load (as determined by the number after the 'S'), or where it
should point.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Thank you Ben, and others, a google search found "symlinks", although it
only appears to be available for <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A>.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
> [Ben]
You could use the "alien" utility to convert it, or simply go to Debian's
page for "symlinks" -
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<<A HREF="http://packages.debian.org/stable/utils/symlinks.html>"
>http://packages.debian.org/stable/utils/symlinks.html></A>;
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
They always provide a link to the tarball from which the package was made,
and you can compile it yourself. <grin> I <EM>like</EM> Debian. A lot.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
> [Mike]
Or, if you don't have the symlinks program available:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><pre>( find / -type l | xargs file ) | grep 'broken symbolic link'
</pre></blockquote>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
The symlinnks prog worked a charm, indeed ot cleaned up everything nicely,
changing absolute to relative links too, lovely.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
The real issue, is my rampant stupidity, since after downloading symlinks,
lo and behold, I discovered it is part of Mandrake 7.2 which I use.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I had pissed about pouring over man pages trying to find out how to
delimit a search to find the buggers, only to discover my salvation
was close at hand.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I have received several TAG replies, and I must say the 1st was within
45 minutes. Astounding
<IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)"
height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
> [Heather]
I'll say it's astounding. Some people don't get answers for
weeks... if at all...
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Keep it up guys.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
--
Merp!
</STRONG></P>
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