Very Computer

I would like to understand how do you read an inode structure by its
inode number. I use stat function to obtain the necessary information
(inode number, etc.) about a file (given its path/name) and at this
point I would like to access the inode structure for this file. I'm
trying to obtain a file list for a given directory and I would like to
do it this way, i.e. use the inodes list. I'm not very good at
filesystems in general, but it looks like the inode structure is loaded
into memory at startup and then when you need info on a particular file,
you traverse that structure. And I would like to do the same.
Note: I'm aware of opendir/readdir/closedir functions. However, I would
like to do it the other way (if it's feasible) for educational purposes.
I would appreciate any help on this subject.
Thank you in advance,

Martin

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| I would like to understand how do you read an inode structure by its
| inode number. I use stat function to obtain the necessary information
| (inode number, etc.) about a file (given its path/name) and at this
| point I would like to access the inode structure for this file. I'm
| trying to obtain a file list for a given directory and I would like to
| do it this way, i.e. use the inodes list. I'm not very good at
| filesystems in general, but it looks like the inode structure is loaded
| into memory at startup and then when you need info on a particular file,
| you traverse that structure. And I would like to do the same.
| Note: I'm aware of opendir/readdir/closedir functions. However, I would
| like to do it the other way (if it's feasible) for educational purposes.
| I would appreciate any help on this subject.
| Thank you in advance,

Being able to directly access an inode, whether it be a file or a directory,
means that you are bypassing the security mechanisms of execute permission
in its parent directories.  Now if you are root, that may not matter, since
root in theory has access to everything.  It should be possible to do (and
restricted to root) but I don't know of it being implemented anywhere.

Since you are mentioning educational and structures, perhaps what you
really want to dive into is the filesystem structure itself.  You could
(as root) open the actual filesystem partition and traverse things that
way.  Programs like fsck do that.

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| Phil Howard - KA9WGN | My current boycotts: Amazon.Com, DVDs, Mattel, Sony

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