Where is the target path of a symlink stored? How are permission settings for symlinks handled?

Question

I created a symlink for an executable in /usr/bin which didnt work. But I created the same in /usr/local/bin which worked the way I expected. How are these two different?

Both the above locations are present in my $PATH.

Answer 1

The target path of a symlink is stored in an inode - the data structure used to store file information on disk.

Typically, the permission settings of the symlink itself only control the renaming and removal operations performed on the symlink itself. Any operation that deals with the contents of the file linked to are controlled by the permission settings of the target file.