Explain inode

Answer Posted / nagaswamy kumar

When a file system is created, data structures are created
that contain information about files. Each file is
associated with an inode that is identified by an inode
number (often referred to as an "i-number" or "inode") in
the file system where it resides.

Inodes store information on files, such as user and group
ownership, access mode (read, write, execute permissions)
and type of file. On many types of file systems the number
of inodes available is fixed at file system creation,
limiting the maximum number of files the file system can
hold. A typical fraction of space allocated for inodes in a
file system is 1% of total size.

The inode number indexes a table of inodes in a known
location on the device; from the inode number, the kernel
can access the contents of the inode, including the data
pointers, and so the contents of the file.

A file's inode number can be found using the ls -i command,
while the ls -l command will retrieve inode information
(i.e. the file information).

Some Unix-style file systems such as ReiserFS may avoid
having a table of inodes, but must store equivalent data in
order to provide equivalent functions. The data may be
called stat data, in reference to the stat system call that
provides the data to programs.

File names and directory implications:

Inodes do not contain file names, only file metadata.
Unix directories are lists of "link" structures, each of
which contains one filename and one inode number.
The kernel must search a directory looking for a particular
filename and then convert the filename to the correct
corresponding inode number if the name is found.
The kernel's in-memory representation of this data is
called struct inode in Linux. Systems derived from BSD use
the term vnode, with the v of vnode referring to the
kernel's virtual file system layer.

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