
In this article we will discuss the concept of symbolic link,its relation with SAP directory structure and how to Create Symbolic Links in SAP for third party tools.
What Is Symbolic Link
Symbolic links also known as soft links is simply a file which does not contain any data and points to the another file.
This concept is similar to ‘shortcut’ in Windows operating system.
SAP System Directories and Symbolic Link
SAP system has three types of directories :
- Local Directories
- Physically shared Directories
- Logically shared Directories
Local Directories:
Local directories in SAP system are the one which are present locally i.e on local host.
e.g.
- /usr/sap/<SAPSID>/DVEBMGS<nr>/
- /usr/sap/<SAPSID>/D<nr>
- /usr/sap/<SAPSID>/ASCS<nr>
Physically shared Directories
Physically shared directories, reside on the SAP Global host, defined by profile parameter SAPGLOBALHOST.
e.g.
- /sapmnt/<SAPSID>/global
- /sapmnt/<SAPSID>/profile
- /sapmnt/<SAPSID>/exe
Logically shared Directories:
Logically shared directories reside on LOCAL host and has symbolic links to the GLOBAL host.
By default, SAP installer creates directory /usr/sap/<SAPSID>/SYS on each host.

For e.g :
- Symbolic link profile points to /<sapmnt>/<SAPSID>/profile
- Symbolic link global points to /<sapmnt>/<SAPSID>/global
- exe subdirectory in this global directory points to /<sapmnt>/<SAPSID>/exe on the SAP global host
Symbolic link uc (for Unicode) points to /<sapmnt>/<SAPSID>/exe/uc.
How To Create Symbolic Links in SAP
Many times, we need to create symbolic links while integrating third party tools with SAP.
We will take an example of creating symbolic links from 3rd party backup tool called NetBackup to SAP kernel directory.
Here we need to create sysmbolic link /sapmnt/DEV/exe/backint to /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/backint
Syntax for achieving this is as below:
$ ln -s {source-filename} {symbolic-filename}
In our case,
First login using SIDADM and go to Kernel Directory:
#cd /sapmnt/DEV/exe
#ln -s /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/backint
Verification:
We can verify the symbolic link we created simply by issuing list command.
#ls -lrt *backint*
Output will be similar like this:
lrwxrwxrwx 202/200 32 Dec 4 16.32 2019 /sapmnt/DEV/exe/backint symbolic link to /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/backint