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Inode

In UNIX based operating systems, each file is indexed by an Inode. Inode are the special disk block which is created with the creation of the file system. The number of files or directories in a file system depends on the number of Inodes in the file system.

An Inode includes the following information

1. Attributes (permissions, time stamp, ownership details, etc) of the file
2. A number of direct blocks which contains the pointers to first 12 blocks of the file.
3. A single indirect pointer which points to an index block. If the file cannot be indexed entirely by the direct blocks then the single indirect pointer is used.
4. A double indirect pointer which points to a disk block that is a collection of the pointers to the disk blocks which are index blocks. Double index pointer is used if the file is too big to be indexed entirely by the direct blocks as well as the single indirect pointer.
5. A triple index pointer that points to a disk block that is a collection of pointers. Each of the pointers is separately pointing to a disk block which also contains a collection of pointers which are separately pointing to an index block that contains the pointers to the file blocks.