You can limit the use of the file system links in your server. File system links are references to files stored in other directories or file systems. The reference makes the remote file as accessible as if it were in the current directory. There are two types of file system links:
Hard links—A hard link is really two filenames that point to the same set of data blocks; the original file and the link are identical. For this reason, hard links cannot be on different file systems.
Symbolic (soft) links—A symbolic link consists of two files, an original file that contains the data, and another that points to the original file. Symbolic links are more flexible than hard links. Symbolic links can be used across different file systems and can be linked to directories.
For more information about hard and symbolic links, see your UNIX/Linux system documentation.
File system links are an easy way to create pointers to documents outside of the primary document directory and anyone can create these links. For this reason you might be concerned that people might create pointers to sensitive files (for example, confidential documents or system password files).
To restrict symbolic links, perform the following steps.
From the Class Manager, click the Content Management tab.
Click Symbolic Links.
Choose Entire Server from the resource picker to apply your change to the whole class, or navigate to the document root for a specific virtual server, or to a specific directory or within a specific virtual server.
Choose whether to enable soft and/or hard links and the directory to start from.
Click OK.
For more information, see the online help for the Symbolic Links page.