Creating symlink in Laravel (windows)

Question

I'm currently having some problems with creating symlink in my Laravel project. I'm currently on Windows 10 OS and I'm using GitBash.

I need to create symlink from storage/app/products_content to public/products_content

For that, I'm using the following command:

ln -s storage/app/products_content public/products_content

The problem is, I'm getting the following error:

ln: failed to create symbolic link 'public/products_content': No such file or directory

But, when I try to create a symlink like this:

ln -s storage/app/products_content products_content

It creates it with no errors, but the folder is in my root directory, not in /public.

What causes this error, could it be permission issues? I'm running GitBash as administrator. Any help appreciated. If I need to provide any additional code, let me know.

Syllepsis

Does public even exist? – Fiasco

It does. My project would't work otherwise. Also, when I create products_content manually in public dir and run this command, it says that folder already exists. – Syllepsis

Well, pls check your paths in your question vs windows, since they differ from what your are asking. – Fiasco

What do you mean they differ? – Syllepsis

you say: storage/app/products_content => public/products_content, then: storage/app/public => public/products_content – Fiasco

You're right. I edited my question. Still having the same problem. – Syllepsis

Answer 1

Try going into the public folder, then do:

ln -s ../storage/app/products_content products_content

And if that doesn't work, open Command Prompt (not PowerShell) And "browse" to the public folder, then do:

mklink /D products_content ..\storage\app\products_content

mklink is the same as ln except that the target and link is switched.

Fiasco

then maybe you need to re:install git-scm with a newer version, that has better support for symblinks, you also need to tick in that symblinking should be activated during the installation process. – Fiasco

this needs to be in the docs for windows users! – Undershorts

Thank you! This is what I needed. It's a couple years later and in case someone sees this, yes, it is still true. Running Windows, serving locally with Laragon. I tried a dozen different things and this was the fix. – Yanez

You need to run the command prompt as administrator – Kalikalian

Answer 2

Just run: php artisan storage:link and modify your path to: storage/products_content

Evulsion

Problem with this is, the project is already in production, there's a lot of images already there. If I do this, my previous images wont work anymore. – Syllepsis

@zlatangoralija gotcha. – Evulsion

This does not work on Windows and this was Windows specific question. – Extortionate

Answer 3

You may configure additional symbolic links in your filesystems configuration file. Each of the configured links will be created when you run the storage:link command:

'links' => [
    public_path('storage') => storage_path('app/public'),
    public_path('images') => storage_path('app/images'),
],

Chifley

Right from the docs. laravel.com/docs/8.x/filesystem . – Hutchison

Answer 4

The problem is when using windows

solution:

In my case, I am using laragon.

LINK CREATION (This is because the php artisan storage: link does not work on windows)

• For this case, you will have access to images
• Open cmd as administrator
• Verify that public access does not work (public \ images)
• Then copy in cmd: mklink / J C: \ laragon \ www \ project-name \ public \ images C: \ laragon \ www \ project-name \ storage \ app \ images

This would be similar to: php artisan storage: link

Take into account that to save in images it must be configured in the filesytem file (conf / filesytem)

   'links' => [
    public_path('storage') => storage_path('app/public'),
    public_path('images') => storage_path('app/images'),
], 

credits : more info

Frasco