What's in an inode?

• The file size (in bytes)
• Timestamps
  • mtime: last time file contents were modified
  • atime: last time file was read
  • ctime: last time inode information changed
• number of links (how many pathnames refer to this inode)
• a list of disk blocks containing file contents
• user and group ids of file ownership
• file access permissions

ls can be used to show much of this information

• ls -l shows file type/permissions, link count, owners, byte size, modification time, name
• ls -lu shows access instead of modification time
• ls -lc shows inode change time
• ls -i shows inode numbers
• ls -s shows block usage

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