Find all links for a specific file on Linux

In Linux, finding all links for a specific file is a common administrative task. A link in Unix/Linux systems is an association between two different files or directories. When you create a link, it creates a new name for the original file. There are two types of links: hard links (multiple names for the same inode) and symbolic links (shortcuts that point to another file path).

Setup Example

Let's start with a practical example. We have a file1.txt document and several symbolic links pointing to it from different locations:

[tpoint@server1:~/test]$ ls -lrth
total 12K
-rw-r--r-- 1 tpoint tpoint 11 Jun 11 16:50 file1.txt
drwxr-xr-x 4 tpoint tpoint 4.0K Jun 11 16:50 dir1

[tpoint@server1:/tmp]$ ln -s /home/tpoint/test/file1.txt filelink
[tpoint@server1:/tmp]$ ln -s /home/tpoint/test/dir1 dirlink

[tpoint@server1:/tmp]$ ls -lrth
total 49M
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tpoint tpoint 28 Jun 11 16:52 filelink -> /home/tpoint/test/file1.txt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tpoint tpoint 28 Jun 11 16:52 dirlink -> /home/tpoint/test/dir1

Method 1 Using find with -samefile

The most direct approach is using the find command with the -samefile option. The -L flag tells find to follow symbolic links:

find -L / -samefile file1.txt 2> /dev/null

/home/tpoint/test/file1.txt
/tmp/filelink
/opt/filelink2
/srv/filelink3

This searches the entire filesystem starting from root (/) and finds all files that refer to the same inode as file1.txt. We redirect error messages to /dev/null to avoid permission denied warnings.

Method 2 Using Inode Numbers

Every file in Linux has an inode number, a unique identifier within the filesystem. First, get the inode number:

stat file1.txt

File: file1.txt
Size: 11 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 810h/2064d Inode: 94804 Links: 1

Now find all files with the same inode number:

find -L / -inum 94804 2> /dev/null

/home/tpoint/test/file1.txt
/tmp/filelink
/opt/filelink2
/srv/filelink3

Method 3 Finding All Symbolic Links

To find all symbolic links in the system and filter for specific targets:

find / -type l -ls 2> /dev/null | grep "file1.txt"

94805 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 tpoint tpoint 28 Jun 11 16:52 /srv/filelink3 -> /home/tpoint/test/file1.txt
94806 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 tpoint tpoint 28 Jun 11 16:52 /tmp/filelink -> /home/tpoint/test/file1.txt
94808 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 tpoint tpoint 28 Jun 11 17:00 /opt/filelink2 -> /home/tpoint/test/file1.txt

The -type l option finds only symbolic links, -ls provides detailed output, and grep filters for our target file.

Comparison of Methods

Conclusion

Finding all links for a specific file can be accomplished using several find command variations. The -samefile option is most straightforward, while -inum works with inode numbers. For symbolic links only, use -type l with grep filtering.