Create symbolic links on server without SSH available?

Question

I got excited when I saw the following post but it doesn't cover my case: Mount an FTP server locally

Is there any way for me to create symbolic links on a remote server without having SSH access, possibly via some FTP hack?

Answer 1

Regular FTP is too abstract to know about symbolic links.

If the server supports custom commands, it might let you send the unix shell commands directly. Not all servers support this but some of them do.

If you have SFTP access (sometimes admins give users SFTP access but no SSH shell), SFTP protocol supports creation of symbolic links.

Answer 2

Use a script.

If you have sh, bash or csh available, then you're nearly as good as if you had an ssh access. If you don't, then most other scripting languages allow you to create symbolic links on your server.

For example, in PHP you would use the symlink() function:

 symlink("myOriginalFileOrDirectory", "mySymbolicLink"); 

I just had the same problem, and this is how I easily solved it :)

Answer 3

RFC 959 defines the FTP protocol, and does not offer any standard provisions for creating symbolic links.