Internals of ext2fs

Inodes

In some sense, the inode is the most interesting structure on the disk
More than any other single struct, the inode is what makes unix unix
The inode represents a file
- i for index
The inodes are addressed starting with 1
- Each inode's number is its i-number
The inode contains all the important information about the file:
- Who owns the file? What are the permissions?
- Is it a plain file, or a directory, or a symlink, or something else?
- When was it last modified? When was it last accessed?
- And, most important: Which data blocks hold its data?
In fact, the only important property of a file that isn't in the inode is the name!