How to copy directories containing symbolic links without converting the link into a directory? Is it possible to change owner/group of a symbolic link?

Don't know of a way to copy symbolic links directly, but using chown and chgrp with the -h flag should help change the owner and group of a symbolic link.

You can tar (CD && tar) the structure to maintain the links. mv should retain links as well, however, they remain relative if the node was created that way. I am not real clear if I am addressing your question though... i.e. tar cf - ./moving_dir | ( cd /unpack-here_dir && tar xfB - ) I guess you dont truly need the 'B', but you can protect a bit from socket short reads ( though I recall tar trying to implement this function automatically when reading from stdin ) and the pipes same failing. Again, relative links to a file not part of your copied structure will be broken. If you anticipate the need for such links and a likelihood of cp'ing them around a lot you will need to set the ./link -> /path/to/file appropriately. SLR-