Every file in a Linux system has unique ID known as inode number. These unique IDs allow Linux system to easily manage files in its filesystem database. In fact, even directories have inode number, just like files. Sometimes you may need to determine the inode number of file in Linux. In this article, we will look at how to find inode number of file in Linux, using ls and stat command.
How to Find Inode number of File in Linux
ls command allows you to view the inode number of multiple files but stat command works with only single file/directory.
Using ls command
Here is an example to find out inode number of file in Linux. The -i option helps you get inode number.
$ ls -li 2944 drwxr-xr-x 16 www-data www-data 4096 Jul 4 2021 html 45570 drwxr-xr-x 5 www-data www-data 4096 Jul 10 21:48 wordpress
In the above output, the first column indicates the inode number. In our case, we have two directories html and wordpress with inode numbers 2944 and 45570 respectively. You can always use other options along with -i option in ls, as well as use wildcard characters to get a list of file details.
Using stat command
Here is the stat command to view inode number of single file. It basically provides lot of details about given file/directory, along with its inode number, given in bold.
$ stat ./html
You will see the following kind of output.
File: ./html Size: 4096 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 directory Device: 801h/2049d Inode: 26944 Links: 16 Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x) Uid: ( 33/www-data) Gid: (33/www-data) Access: 2021-12-06 03:33:13.194964943 +0000 Modify: 2021-06-04 11:47:16.000000000 +0000 Change: 2021-12-06 12:33:05.246318669 +0000
Also read:
How to Create Ext4 Filesystem in Linux
How to Increase Inode Limit in Linux
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How to Convert DEB to RPM Files in Linux
How to Configure Access Control Lists (ACL) in Linux
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Sreeram has more than 10 years of experience in web development, Python, Linux, SQL and database programming.