Inodes

Question 1

What do inodes store?

Answer 1

Metadata for files in a Linux filesystem

Question 2

What metadata is stored in an inode?

Answer 2

Ownership, permissions, and location on disk

Question 3

Do inodes store file names or contents?

Answer 3

No

Question 4

What is an inode in simple terms?

Answer 4

An ID card for each file, directory, or object in the filesystem

Question 5

Does every file require an inode?

Answer 5

Yes, regardless of file size

Question 6

What are directories in relation to inodes?

Answer 6

Special files that map filenames to inode numbers

Question 7

Does each directory require its own inode?

Answer 7

Yes

Question 8

When does inode exhaustion occur?

Answer 8

When inode limit is reached before disk space is full

Question 9

What happens during inode exhaustion?

Answer 9

Prevents creation of new files despite available storage space

Question 10

How to monitor inode usage?

Answer 10

Use df -i to display inode usage statistics

Question 11

What does df -i output include?

Answer 11

Inodes, Iused, Ifree, IUse%, Mounted on

Question 12

When are inodes allocated?

Answer 12

During filesystem creation

Question 13

Example command to create filesystem and allocate inodes?

Answer 13

mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sdb1

Question 14

Why customize inode allocation?

Answer 14

For large numbers of small files

Question 15

How are files and directories tied to inodes?

Answer 15

Through inode numbers

Question 16

What do hard links do?

Answer 16

Point multiple filenames to the same inode

Question 17

Command to display inode numbers?

Answer 17

ls -i

Question 18

Example of hard link sharing inode?

Answer 18

example.txt and example-hardlink.txt share the same inode number