Ubuntu Command to Display Real Physical Path

This article explains how to identify the actual physical location of a file or directory in Ubuntu when symbolic links are involved. It covers the primary commands used to resolve these links to their absolute real paths, ensuring you know exactly where data resides on your disk regardless of shortcuts or pointers.

The primary command to display the real physical path resolving all symlinks is realpath. This utility is included in the GNU coreutils package and is pre-installed on Ubuntu. It canonicalizes the filename by removing extra slashes, resolving relative paths, and following all symbolic links to return the absolute pathname.

realpath /path/to/file_or_symlink

If realpath is unavailable or you prefer an alternative, use the readlink command with the -f flag. While readlink alone only prints the value of a symlink, the -f option forces it to resolve every symlink in the path recursively until it reaches the actual file.

readlink -f /path/to/file_or_symlink

Both commands produce the same output for most use cases. For instance, if a symlink named config points to /etc/app/settings.ini, running either command on config will output /etc/app/settings.ini. Use these tools in scripts or manual checks to verify the true location of resources on your Ubuntu system.