Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this as I am new to this site.

Can I link files via symbolic links to target files residing on a remote Windows CIFS share?

What is the format of the link path (UNC, etc.)?

i would assume so ?

what was the error message when you tried. (not sure what 'unc, etc' means)

As far as I know, you can symlink (but not hardlink) any file that resides in a file system that's attached to your tree, it doesn't matter the underlying phisical filesystem at all. Though admittedly, I have little experience with Windows in general for the last 8 years or so.

If you have mounted a remote fs using samba or cifs under /mnt/win, you should be able to link any file residing under that directory just as usual. There's no special syntax.

If you are talking about symlinking files *without mounting* the cifs or samba volume, then that's not possible. AND, of course, the symlink will be broken when the share is not mounted.

UNC = Universal Naming Convention for path names. For example, in windows, a UNC path looks like:

\\servername\sharename\path\filename


I don't have an error message. I am in the planning stages and have a need to link files to a Windows share.

Thanks. I think you answered my question. So, would the path stored in the link be "/mnt/win/...(path on the share)"?

Yes, presuming that your mount point was /mnt/win/ .

As per the post above, it just depends on where did you mount the share. It could be /mnt/win/whatever or it could be /foo/bar/whateverelse, check the docs and make sure where are you mounting the share.

Paths like \\foo\bar\mywindowsuser will fail.