Mastering Linux Kernel Development

Inode (index node)

The filesystem needs to maintain metadata to identify and track various attributes for each file and directory created by user. There are several elements of metadata that describe a file such as filename, type of file, last access timestamp, owner, access privileges, last modification timestamp, creation time, size of file data, and references to disk blocks containing file data. Conventionally, filesystems define a structure called inode to contain all metadata of a file. The size and type of information contained in inode is filesystem specific and may largely vary based on the functionalities it supports. Each inode is identified by a unique number referred to as an index, which is considered a low-level name of the ...