Rich Shepard <rshepard@appl-ecosys.com> writes:
> On Mon, 19 Feb 2018, Tim Cross wrote:
>
>> It is possible for the target of a symbolic link to be changed, deleted
>> etc (a dangling sym link).
>
> Tim,
>
> Broken symlinks display in a different color, black on a red background if
> I remember correctly, rather than the light cyan of a working symlink. I've
> seen enough of the former to recognize the difference. :-)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rich
Hi Rich,
yes, for dangling links, if your ls is configured to show colours and
your shell honours those colours, dangling links will show up with a
different colour. However, this will not tell you if, for example, the
mode of the file being pointed to does not have the executable bit set
for the user/group running/calling the sym link. If the file doe snot
have the right executable bits set, you would get the error message
about not being able to find the executable file.
From memory, your cut and paste looked like it has a '*' at the end,
which is what ls will show (assuming the alias you have adds that
option), so the target probably has at least the owner exec bit set, but
when tracking down problems like this, I have learnt it is often best to
just verify the modes and owner/group memberships of the target are
correct.
regards,
Tim
--
Tim Cross