LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] symlinking /bin/sh to bash question

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symlinking /bin/sh to bash question

I am trying to ensure this situation:

Quote:

/bin/sh should be a symbolic or hard link to bash

When I tried to do that i got:

Code:

david@DavidLee1A:~$ ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh

ln: failed to create symbolic link `/bin/sh': File exists

david@DavidLee1A:~$ ln /bin/bash /bin/sh

ln: failed to create hard link `/bin/sh': File exists

How do I ensure that /bin/sh is properly liked to bash?
To be honest I don't exactly understand the point of this (something to do with how scripts execute in each shell?) and never really think about inodes.
Maybe this will give additional info:

Code:

david@DavidLee1A:~$ ls -ali

total 224

  262 drwxr-xr-x 30 david david  4096 Jun  3 19:58 .

  261 drwxr-xr-x  3 root  root  4096 May 28 09:49 ..

  4610 -rw-------  1 david david  1222 Jun  3 16:00 .bash_history

  265 -rw-r--r--  1 david david  220 May 28 09:49 .bash_logout

  263 -rw-r--r--  1 david david  3392 May 28 09:49 .bashrc

  278 drwx------  8 david david  4096 Jun  3 19:53 .cache

  275 drwx------ 14 david david  4096 Jun  3 18:34 .config

  281 drwx------  3 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 .dbus

  267 drwxr-xr-x  2 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 Desktop

  271 drwxr-xr-x  4 david david  4096 Jun  1 07:41 Documents

  268 drwxr-xr-x  8 david david  4096 Jun  3 13:10 Downloads

393235 drwxr-xr-x  2 david david  4096 May 29 07:32 .fontconfig

  289 drwx------  3 david david  4096 Jun  3 19:53 .gconf

  4598 -rw-r-----  1 david david    0 Jun  1 14:50 .gksu.lock

262826 drwx------  3 david david  4096 May 28 11:46 .gnash

  290 drwx------  5 david david  4096 May 31 14:10 .gnome2

262167 drwx------  2 david david  4096 May 28 10:10 .gnome2_private

263267 drwx------  2 david david  4096 May 29 08:00 .gnupg

262842 drwxr-xr-x  2 david david  4096 May 28 12:40 .gstreamer-0.10

  266 -rw-r--r--  1 david david  137 Jun  3 19:53 .gtk-bookmarks

  292 drwx------  2 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 .gvfs

393618 drwxr-----  2 david david  4096 Jun  3 19:54 .hplip

  285 -rw-------  1 david david  4008 Jun  3 19:53 .ICEauthority

393247 drwx------  3 david david  4096 May 29 07:47 .kde

  299 drwxr-xr-x  3 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 .local

  4609 -rw-r--r--  1 david david    40 May 28 12:41 Mary_Jones.letter

  309 drwx------  3 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 .mission-control

262169 drwx------  4 david david  4096 May 28 10:10 .mozilla

  272 drwxr-xr-x  2 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 Music

  273 drwxr-xr-x  3 david david  4096 Jun  2 08:18 Pictures

  264 -rw-r--r--  1 david david  675 May 28 09:49 .profile

  270 drwxr-xr-x  2 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 Public

  294 drwx------  2 david david  4096 Jun  3 19:53 .pulse

  293 -rw-------  1 david david  256 May 28 09:51 .pulse-cookie

266735 drwx------  2 david david  4096 May 29 07:06 .ssh

  269 drwxr-xr-x  2 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 Templates

263063 drwx------  4 david david  4096 Jun  3 18:34 .thumbnails

  341 -rw-r--r--  1 david david  1257 Jun  3 19:58 version-check.sh

  274 drwxr-xr-x  2 david david  4096 May 28 09:51 Videos

  4676 -rw-------  1 david david  1171 Jun  3 16:00 .viminfo

395061 drwxr-xr-x  5 david david  4096 Jun  2 14:43 WindowsDocuments

  250 -rw-------  1 david david  3866 Jun  3 20:58 .xsession-errors

  251 -rw-------  1 david david 54240 Jun  3 18:53 .xsession-errors.old

If /bin/sh exists, leave it alone.

If it doesn't exist, then you can create it.

Normally /bin/sh is used during system boot... so tampering with it could be a problem, or cause a serious problem.

On MOST linux systems /bin/sh is either the bash binary ( and /bin/bash a link to it) or the other way around. As long as /bin/sh exists, system boot will work.

Thank you jpollard for replying but I am trying to avoid issues somewhere else:
Oh, by the way, I noticed the link goes to dash:

Code:

david@DavidLee1A:~$ readlink -f /bin/sh

/bin/dash

I thought this was a general question but I should have put this in the LFS thread, consider the manual entry located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/.../hostreqs.html which says:

Quote:

Symlinks that point to other software (such as dash, mawk, etc.) may work, but are not tested or supported by the LFS development team, and may require either deviation from the instructions or additional patches to some packages.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidLee1A (Post 4964908)

I thought this was a general question but I should have put this in the LFS thread, consider the manual entry located at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/.../hostreqs.html which says:

Quote:

You can delete the current link to dash and create a new one by hand that points to bash (as root):

Code:

$ rm /bin/sh

$ ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh

About mawk: Once you install gawk the link is also changed to reflect this.

Do make sure that your distro is compliant with the Host System Requirements if you are going to try building LFS, otherwise you'll encounter problems along the way and might need to start from scratch again.

BTW: Do post your LFS related questions in the LFS sub-forum :)

I marked this solved and continued it here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...49#post4965249

Done. Thank you. If there are no issues then I'll mark this solved in a few hours.

Code:

root@DavidLee1A:/home/david# rm /bin/sh

root@DavidLee1A:/home/david# ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh

root@DavidLee1A:/home/david# readlink -f /bin/sh

/bin/bash