Linux – `ls` Attemptes to list nonexisting symbolic links on WSL

symlinkwindowswindows-subsystem-for-linux

I have clean installed windows 10 (build 1803). I have installed Ubuntu from the Microsoft Store and enabled Linux subsystem. I have done this several times in the past, and never have I had the following issue: my c directory is all messed up thanks to symbolic links. Take for example the output of dir in cmd and ls in WSL:

C:\Users\username>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is BC00-A6D5

 Directory of C:\Users\username
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          .
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          ..
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          3D Objects
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Contacts
05/25/2018  01:19 AM    <DIR>          Desktop
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Documents
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Downloads
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Favorites
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Links
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Music
05/25/2018  12:06 AM    <DIR>          OneDrive
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Pictures
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Saved Games
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Searches
05/25/2018  12:01 AM    <DIR>          Videos
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
              15 Dir(s)  88,018,132,992 bytes free

name:/mnt/c/Users/username$ ls
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'Application Data': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'Cookies': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'Local Settings': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'My Documents': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'NetHood': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'PrintHood': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'Recent': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'SendTo': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'Start Menu': Permission denied
ls: cannot read symbolic link 'Templates': Permission denied
3D Objects            NTUSER.DAT{c9e9d809-5fd7-11e8-a0cd-4e0bbe2b78ad}.TM.blf
AppData               NTUSER.DAT{c9e9d809-5fd7-11e8-a0cd-4e0bbe2b78ad}.TMContainer00000000000000000001.regtrans-ms
Application Data      NTUSER.DAT{c9e9d809-5fd7-11e8-a0cd-4e0bbe2b78ad}.TMContainer00000000000000000002.regtrans-ms
Contacts              ntuser.dat.LOG1
Cookies               ntuser.dat.LOG2
[...]

Comparing the same directory–Ubuntu on the left and cmd on the right–you see that ls attempts to list symbolic links that aren't there! I have never had this issue and I have not altered any permissions or anything, so I have no idea what's happening. Can anyone help me with this?

Here is some possibly useful information:

Mount gives

mount
rootfs on / type lxfs (rw,noatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime)
none on /dev type tmpfs (rw,noatime,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,noatime,gid=5,mode=620)
none on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,noexec,noatime,mode=755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime)
none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,mode=755)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noatime)
C: on /mnt/c type drvfs (rw,noatime,uid=1000,gid=1000)

Then,

id -u
1000
id -g
1000

My /etc/wsl.conf file was non-existent at first, so I created one; but, I don't think this is the key to solving the issue, since mount has shown that c is correctly mounted. Right now it's this

[automount]
enabled = true

My question in short: there seems to be NO symlinks in my directories as confirmed from running dir in cmd. Yet, the Ubuntu command line shows symbolic links. Why is that? Oh, also, I cannot delete them (even with sudo rm) as permission is denied. This is sort of annoying!

Best Answer

as confirmed from running dir in cmd.

This did not confirm anything of the sort. Use the /a option to the dir command. How to use the dir command on a non-Unix non-Linux operating system is really beyond the scope of this WWW site. So I'll stop here after pointing out that this fundamental premise of the question is wrong.

Related Solutions

Windows – Does Windows recognize Linux’s symbolic links

Depends on the Windows version and the configuration of the server-side when we talk about non-local disks.

Since Windows Vista, Windows does have an idea of symbolic links, but the semantics differ. But the more important problem here should be the path names, which follow a different syntax. For starters: single-rooted directory tree on the unixoid side and several drive letters as roots on the Windows side.

On the unixoid side symlinks are merely text files with a special flag. On the Windows side the underlying mechanism is called a reparse point. This tells the object manager to to pass it to particular registered filters (the meta-date for this is stored in the reparse points). Windows 2000 already introduced one type of reparse points known as junction points (roughly, but not quite, directory symlinks). With Vista they introduced symlinks to both files and directories, also on remote drives. And symlinks on remote drives are also supported to some extent.

The main point is whether the file system driver - when run locally - would do any adjustments to the paths Windows gets to see. In such a case it would work for certain local/relative symlinks. For absolute paths as targets things will get difficult and impossible to deduce what's meant. Same for remote symlinks links (to "network shares").

As for the Mac side I have no idea and it might make sense as a separate question. But as long as the server side conveys the information that this is a symlink, I see no problems, since they both follow the SUS semantics (unlike Windows).

Consider the Linux side mount points:

/dev/sda1 /
/dev/sda2 /home
/dev/sda3 /var

And now consider a symlink /home/paul/fstab pointing to /etc/fstab. They are located on two different volumes which Windows - if able to see them through a file system driver (which does work!) - can't tell belong together the way /etc/fstab describes it. So the link, which Windows would see under a folder \paul\fstab, even if translated, would point to \etc\fstab, which doesn't exist on /dev/sda2. And if that symlink would point to the relative path ../../etc/fstab things wouldn't change at all.

The gist: So while this is conceivable that you can get this to work for some corner cases, the fact that semantics and syntax differ on both sides of the fence makes it unlikely that you will find a practical and generic method that works.

Shell – List direct symbolic links (links that don’t point to another symlink)

I can provide you with a perl snippet to do this for you:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
foreach my $i (@ARGV) {
    # If it is a symlink then...
    -l $i and do {
        # First indirection; ensure that it exists and is not a link
        my $j = readlink($i);
        print "$i\n" if -e $j and ! -l $j
    }
}

If you save that as /usr/local/bin/if-link and make it executable (chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/if-link) you can use it like this

/usr/local/bin/if-link * .*

To incorporate it in another script, you can use it as a one-liner

perl -e 'foreach my $i (@ARGV) { -l $i && do { my $j = readlink($i); print "$i\n" if -e $j and ! -l $j } }' * .*

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – Does Windows recognize Linux’s symbolic links

Shell – List direct symbolic links (links that don’t point to another symlink)

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