How does macOS implement symbolic link in Mojave on FAT32 filesystems

aliasfat32filesystemsymlinkunix

I remember in the past, not all types of aliases (as in the macOS feature) can be created on all filesystems. This is because symbolic link (as in the type of file) is a special Unix file type, whereas aliases (as in the kind of file with resource fork) utilizes resource forks (which on some filesystems creates the ugly "._*" files).

But today, I just created a symbolic link on my FAT32 USB pointing to a folder in my removable harddrive.

My question is:

1) How does macOS Mojave creates symbolic link on FAT32 filesystem?

2) Is it portable with other Unix/BSD/Linux systems?

3) Is it compatible with Cygwin?

Best Answer

The Minshall+French format is what macOS uses to store Unix symlinks on FAT and CIFS volumes. More details on the Minshall+French format can be found here:

The Linux CIFS implementation provides a 'mfsymlinks' mount option (which is off by default) that supports the Minshall+French format.

I believe Docker for Windows also supports the Minshall+French format.