Write a brief note on inode

Question

Write a brief note on 'inode'?

Answer 1

All UNIX files have its description stored in a structure which is known as 'inode'. The inode includes information about the file-size, time of last access, its location, time of last modification, permission etc. Directories are as well represented as files and have an associated inode. Furthermore a description about the file, the inode includes pointers to the data blocks of the file. If the file is huge, inode has indirect pointer to a block of pointers to additional data blocks (or this further aggregates for larger files). A block is characteristically 8k.

Inode comprises of the following fields:

• Location of the file data
• File size
• Number of links
• File access permissions
• File access times
• File type
• File owner identifier