Say for instance I want to link the following two directories with a command like this:
ln -s /home/usertwo testdir
When I click ls, in the directory where this link is created, i will see something like
testdir -> /home/usertwo
Is there a way I can hide /home/usertwo so that userone cannot see the name of usertwo?
Hiding the listing would be impossible by what you could do is hide the directory from being read: chmod -r /certain/directories. Some may prefer to toggle the e[x]ecutable flag but that would also stop files from being read or executed.
One possible way to do it is not with a symlink but with a bind mount. The symlink has to know where to go because that is everything it is and it shows.
The possible solution:
/home/somedir <-- we want this one to show under otherdir/share /home/otherdir mount -o bind,ro /home/somedir /home/otherdir/share
here is a sample
$ ls -l
drwxrwxr-x 4 user user 35 jan 9 12:37 home
$ ls -l home/
drwxrwxr-x 3 user user 18 jan 9 12:38 otherdir
drwxrwxr-x 2 user user 21 jan 9 12:38 somedir
$ ls -l home/somedir/
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 jan 9 12:38 test.txt
$ ls -l home/otherdir/
drwxrwxr-x 2 user user 6 jan 9 12:38 share
$ ls -l home/otherdir/share/
$ sudo mount -o bind home/somedir/ home/otherdir/share/
$ ls -l home/otherdir/share/
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 jan 9 12:38 test.txt
mount?
Jan 9, 2014 at 15:27
useronecan access. Alternately, if the symlink needs to be in a public directory, you could chain them, e.g.testdir -> /home/userone/some-innocuous-filename -> /home/usertwo. Assuming onlyuseronecan read/home/userone, onlyuseronewill be able to see where the “middle” symlink points.