inode
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An inode (index node) is a data structure in a Unix-style file system that describes a file-system object such as a file or a directory. Each inode stores the attributes and disk block locations of the object's data. File-system object attributes may include metadata (times of last change, access, modification), as well as owner and permission data.
~13 min read
Encyclopedic overview
16 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Details
- POSIX inode description
- Implications
- Multi-named files and hard links
- inode persistence and unlinked files
- inode number conversion and file directory path retrieval
- Historical possibility of directory hard linking
- inode number stability and non-Unix file systems
- Simplified library installation with inode file systems
- Potential for inode exhaustion and solutions
- Inlining
- In non-Unix systems
- See also
- References
- External links
An inode (index node) is a data structure in a Unix-style file system that describes a file-system object such as a file or a directory. Each inode stores the attributes and disk block locations of the object's data. File-system object attributes may include metadata (times of last change, access, modification), as well as owner and permission data.
A directory is a list of inodes with their assigned names. The list includes an entry for itself, its parent, and each of its children.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “inode” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.