5 articles tagged "metadata structure"

Why isn’t it possible to create hard links across file system boundaries?
A single inode number use to represent file in each file system. All hard links based upon inode number.
So linking across file system will lead into confusing references for UNIX or Linux. For example, consider following scenario
* File system: /home
* Directory: /home/vivek
* Hard link: /home/vivek/file2
* Original file: /home/vivek/file1
Now you create a hard link as [...]
How to: Linux / UNIX Delete or Remove Files With Inode Number
An inode identifies the file and its attributes such as file size, owner, and so on. A unique inode number within the file system identifies each inode. But, why to delete file by an inode number? Sure, you can use rm command to delete file. Sometime accidentally you creates filename with control characters or characters [...]
Understanding UNIX / Linux filesystem directories
You use DNS (domain name system) to translate between domain names and IP addresses.
Similarly files are referred by file name, not by inode number. So what is the purpose of a directory? You can groups the files according to your usage. For example all configuration files are stored under /etc directory. So the purpose [...]
Understanding UNIX / Linux filesystem Inodes

An inode is a data structure on a traditional Unix-style file system such as UFS or ext3. An inode stores basic information about a regular file, directory, or other file system object.
Understanding UNIX / Linux filesystem Superblock
This is second part of “Understanding UNIX/Linux file system”, part I is here. Let us take an example of 20 GB hard disk. The entire disk space subdivided into multiple file system blocks. And blocks used for what?
Unix / Linux filesystem blocks
The blocks used for two different purpose:

Most blocks stores user data aka files [...]