Mapping inode numbers to file names

[gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org (Jerry Feldman)]

Essentially this is inherent in the design of the Unix/Linux file
systems. Possibly some indexing utility, like beagle, or possibly by
writing a specialized version of find. The 'find' command is a brute
force utility that recursively searches through a directory tree. The
inode contains a count, so you know the maximum number of links, so when
you have found all those links you can stop. You can also multi-task the
search.  I do seem to remember that there was another utility to do
inode searches more quickly than 'find', but that might have been on
Tru64 Unix.

On 04/27/2010 09:22 AM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
> Let's suppose you rename a file or directory.
>
> /tank/widgets/a/rel2049_773.13-4/somefile.txt
>
> Becomes
>
> /tank/widgets/b/foogoo_release_1.9/README
>
> =20
>
> Let's suppose you are now working on widget B, and you want to look at =
the
> past zfs snapshot of README, but you don't remember where it came from.=

> That is, you don't know the previous name or location where that file u=
sed
> to be.  One way you could do it would be:
>
> =20
>
> Look up the inode number of README.  (for example, ls -i README)
>
>                 (suppose it's inode 12345)
>
> find /tank/.zfs/snapshot -inum 12345
>
> =20
>
> Problem is, the find command will run for a long time.
>
> =20
>
> Is there any faster way to find the file name(s) when all you know is t=
he
> inode number?  (Actually, all you know is all the info that's in the pr=
esent
> directory, which is not limited to inode number; but, inode number is t=
he
> only information that I personally know could be useful.)
>
>  =20


--=20
Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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