Can anyone give me some info about inodes?

[Gregory Woodbury]

On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 11:40:59AM +0530, Kaustubh Ghosh wrote:
> Hi all,
> I am new to this list and I have a question:
> Can anyone please tell me the answers to the following:
>   1.How many inodes are there in a single block ?
	Depends on the size of the inode, but I believe there is an
integral number of inodes per block, the kernel headers (inode.h?) tell
the tale.

>   2.After a inode is deleted , is it appended to the end of free inodes list?
	Yes

>   3.Is there any preference in which the inodes are allocated in choosing 
> between inodes that has never been allocated and inodes which were once 
> allocated but are now free?
	Since the inodes are added to the end of the free list there is
a defacto preference for new inodes.

>   4.Doess the data in an inode remains unchanged when it is deleted?
	No, I believe the inode blocklist is cleared when the contents
are deallocated.  This is necessary so that the free block list can be
reconstructed if necessary by fsck.

The code is available in the kernel tree, and on the net, you should
google for information as well.

-- 
G.Wolfe Woodbury     `- -'
RHCT                   U
The Line Eater is a boojum!