1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 2 3Index Nodes 4----------- 5 6In a regular UNIX filesystem, the inode stores all the metadata 7pertaining to the file (time stamps, block maps, extended attributes, 8etc), not the directory entry. To find the information associated with a 9file, one must traverse the directory files to find the directory entry 10associated with a file, then load the inode to find the metadata for 11that file. ext4 appears to cheat (for performance reasons) a little bit 12by storing a copy of the file type (normally stored in the inode) in the 13directory entry. (Compare all this to FAT, which stores all the file 14information directly in the directory entry, but does not support hard 15links and is in general more seek-happy than ext4 due to its simpler 16block allocator and extensive use of linked lists.) 17 18The inode table is a linear array of ``struct ext4_inode``. The table is 19sized to have enough blocks to store at least 20``sb.s_inode_size * sb.s_inodes_per_group`` bytes. The number of the 21block group containing an inode can be calculated as 22``(inode_number - 1) / sb.s_inodes_per_group``, and the offset into the 23group's table is ``(inode_number - 1) % sb.s_inodes_per_group``. There 24is no inode 0. 25 26The inode checksum is calculated against the FS UUID, the inode number, 27and the inode structure itself. 28 29The inode table entry is laid out in ``struct ext4_inode``. 30 31.. list-table:: 32 :widths: 8 8 24 40 33 :header-rows: 1 34 :class: longtable 35 36 * - Offset 37 - Size 38 - Name 39 - Description 40 * - 0x0 41 - __le16 42 - i_mode 43 - File mode. See the table i_mode_ below. 44 * - 0x2 45 - __le16 46 - i_uid 47 - Lower 16-bits of Owner UID. 48 * - 0x4 49 - __le32 50 - i_size_lo 51 - Lower 32-bits of size in bytes. 52 * - 0x8 53 - __le32 54 - i_atime 55 - Last access time, in seconds since the epoch. However, if the EA_INODE 56 inode flag is set, this inode stores an extended attribute value and 57 this field contains the checksum of the value. 58 * - 0xC 59 - __le32 60 - i_ctime 61 - Last inode change time, in seconds since the epoch. However, if the 62 EA_INODE inode flag is set, this inode stores an extended attribute 63 value and this field contains the lower 32 bits of the attribute value's 64 reference count. 65 * - 0x10 66 - __le32 67 - i_mtime 68 - Last data modification time, in seconds since the epoch. However, if the 69 EA_INODE inode flag is set, this inode stores an extended attribute 70 value and this field contains the number of the inode that owns the 71 extended attribute. 72 * - 0x14 73 - __le32 74 - i_dtime 75 - Deletion Time, in seconds since the epoch. 76 * - 0x18 77 - __le16 78 - i_gid 79 - Lower 16-bits of GID. 80 * - 0x1A 81 - __le16 82 - i_links_count 83 - Hard link count. Normally, ext4 does not permit an inode to have more 84 than 65,000 hard links. This applies to files as well as directories, 85 which means that there cannot be more than 64,998 subdirectories in a 86 directory (each subdirectory's '..' entry counts as a hard link, as does 87 the '.' entry in the directory itself). With the DIR_NLINK feature 88 enabled, ext4 supports more than 64,998 subdirectories by setting this 89 field to 1 to indicate that the number of hard links is not known. 90 * - 0x1C 91 - __le32 92 - i_blocks_lo 93 - Lower 32-bits of “block” count. If the huge_file feature flag is not 94 set on the filesystem, the file consumes ``i_blocks_lo`` 512-byte blocks 95 on disk. If huge_file is set and EXT4_HUGE_FILE_FL is NOT set in 96 ``inode.i_flags``, then the file consumes ``i_blocks_lo + (i_blocks_hi 97 << 32)`` 512-byte blocks on disk. If huge_file is set and 98 EXT4_HUGE_FILE_FL IS set in ``inode.i_flags``, then this file 99 consumes (``i_blocks_lo + i_blocks_hi`` << 32) filesystem blocks on 100 disk. 101 * - 0x20 102 - __le32 103 - i_flags 104 - Inode flags. See the table i_flags_ below. 105 * - 0x24 106 - 4 bytes 107 - i_osd1 108 - See the table i_osd1_ for more details. 109 * - 0x28 110 - 60 bytes 111 - i_block[EXT4_N_BLOCKS=15] 112 - Block map or extent tree. See the section “The Contents of inode.i_block”. 113 * - 0x64 114 - __le32 115 - i_generation 116 - File version (for NFS). 117 * - 0x68 118 - __le32 119 - i_file_acl_lo 120 - Lower 32-bits of extended attribute block. ACLs are of course one of 121 many possible extended attributes; I think the name of this field is a 122 result of the first use of extended attributes being for ACLs. 123 * - 0x6C 124 - __le32 125 - i_size_high / i_dir_acl 126 - Upper 32-bits of file/directory size. In ext2/3 this field was named 127 i_dir_acl, though it was usually set to zero and never used. 128 * - 0x70 129 - __le32 130 - i_obso_faddr 131 - (Obsolete) fragment address. 132 * - 0x74 133 - 12 bytes 134 - i_osd2 135 - See the table i_osd2_ for more details. 136 * - 0x80 137 - __le16 138 - i_extra_isize 139 - Size of this inode - 128. Alternately, the size of the extended inode 140 fields beyond the original ext2 inode, including this field. 141 * - 0x82 142 - __le16 143 - i_checksum_hi 144 - Upper 16-bits of the inode checksum. 145 * - 0x84 146 - __le32 147 - i_ctime_extra 148 - Extra change time bits. This provides sub-second precision. See Inode 149 Timestamps section. 150 * - 0x88 151 - __le32 152 - i_mtime_extra 153 - Extra modification time bits. This provides sub-second precision. 154 * - 0x8C 155 - __le32 156 - i_atime_extra 157 - Extra access time bits. This provides sub-second precision. 158 * - 0x90 159 - __le32 160 - i_crtime 161 - File creation time, in seconds since the epoch. 162 * - 0x94 163 - __le32 164 - i_crtime_extra 165 - Extra file creation time bits. This provides sub-second precision. 166 * - 0x98 167 - __le32 168 - i_version_hi 169 - Upper 32-bits for version number. 170 * - 0x9C 171 - __le32 172 - i_projid 173 - Project ID. 174 175.. _i_mode: 176 177The ``i_mode`` value is a combination of the following flags: 178 179.. list-table:: 180 :widths: 16 64 181 :header-rows: 1 182 183 * - Value 184 - Description 185 * - 0x1 186 - S_IXOTH (Others may execute) 187 * - 0x2 188 - S_IWOTH (Others may write) 189 * - 0x4 190 - S_IROTH (Others may read) 191 * - 0x8 192 - S_IXGRP (Group members may execute) 193 * - 0x10 194 - S_IWGRP (Group members may write) 195 * - 0x20 196 - S_IRGRP (Group members may read) 197 * - 0x40 198 - S_IXUSR (Owner may execute) 199 * - 0x80 200 - S_IWUSR (Owner may write) 201 * - 0x100 202 - S_IRUSR (Owner may read) 203 * - 0x200 204 - S_ISVTX (Sticky bit) 205 * - 0x400 206 - S_ISGID (Set GID) 207 * - 0x800 208 - S_ISUID (Set UID) 209 * - 210 - These are mutually-exclusive file types: 211 * - 0x1000 212 - S_IFIFO (FIFO) 213 * - 0x2000 214 - S_IFCHR (Character device) 215 * - 0x4000 216 - S_IFDIR (Directory) 217 * - 0x6000 218 - S_IFBLK (Block device) 219 * - 0x8000 220 - S_IFREG (Regular file) 221 * - 0xA000 222 - S_IFLNK (Symbolic link) 223 * - 0xC000 224 - S_IFSOCK (Socket) 225 226.. _i_flags: 227 228The ``i_flags`` field is a combination of these values: 229 230.. list-table:: 231 :widths: 16 64 232 :header-rows: 1 233 234 * - Value 235 - Description 236 * - 0x1 237 - This file requires secure deletion (EXT4_SECRM_FL). (not implemented) 238 * - 0x2 239 - This file should be preserved, should undeletion be desired 240 (EXT4_UNRM_FL). (not implemented) 241 * - 0x4 242 - File is compressed (EXT4_COMPR_FL). (not really implemented) 243 * - 0x8 244 - All writes to the file must be synchronous (EXT4_SYNC_FL). 245 * - 0x10 246 - File is immutable (EXT4_IMMUTABLE_FL). 247 * - 0x20 248 - File can only be appended (EXT4_APPEND_FL). 249 * - 0x40 250 - The dump(1) utility should not dump this file (EXT4_NODUMP_FL). 251 * - 0x80 252 - Do not update access time (EXT4_NOATIME_FL). 253 * - 0x100 254 - Dirty compressed file (EXT4_DIRTY_FL). (not used) 255 * - 0x200 256 - File has one or more compressed clusters (EXT4_COMPRBLK_FL). (not used) 257 * - 0x400 258 - Do not compress file (EXT4_NOCOMPR_FL). (not used) 259 * - 0x800 260 - Encrypted inode (EXT4_ENCRYPT_FL). This bit value previously was 261 EXT4_ECOMPR_FL (compression error), which was never used. 262 * - 0x1000 263 - Directory has hashed indexes (EXT4_INDEX_FL). 264 * - 0x2000 265 - AFS magic directory (EXT4_IMAGIC_FL). 266 * - 0x4000 267 - File data must always be written through the journal 268 (EXT4_JOURNAL_DATA_FL). 269 * - 0x8000 270 - File tail should not be merged (EXT4_NOTAIL_FL). (not used by ext4) 271 * - 0x10000 272 - All directory entry data should be written synchronously (see 273 ``dirsync``) (EXT4_DIRSYNC_FL). 274 * - 0x20000 275 - Top of directory hierarchy (EXT4_TOPDIR_FL). 276 * - 0x40000 277 - This is a huge file (EXT4_HUGE_FILE_FL). 278 * - 0x80000 279 - Inode uses extents (EXT4_EXTENTS_FL). 280 * - 0x100000 281 - Verity protected file (EXT4_VERITY_FL). 282 * - 0x200000 283 - Inode stores a large extended attribute value in its data blocks 284 (EXT4_EA_INODE_FL). 285 * - 0x400000 286 - This file has blocks allocated past EOF (EXT4_EOFBLOCKS_FL). 287 (deprecated) 288 * - 0x01000000 289 - Inode is a snapshot (``EXT4_SNAPFILE_FL``). (not in mainline) 290 * - 0x04000000 291 - Snapshot is being deleted (``EXT4_SNAPFILE_DELETED_FL``). (not in 292 mainline) 293 * - 0x08000000 294 - Snapshot shrink has completed (``EXT4_SNAPFILE_SHRUNK_FL``). (not in 295 mainline) 296 * - 0x10000000 297 - Inode has inline data (EXT4_INLINE_DATA_FL). 298 * - 0x20000000 299 - Create children with the same project ID (EXT4_PROJINHERIT_FL). 300 * - 0x80000000 301 - Reserved for ext4 library (EXT4_RESERVED_FL). 302 * - 303 - Aggregate flags: 304 * - 0x705BDFFF 305 - User-visible flags. 306 * - 0x604BC0FF 307 - User-modifiable flags. Note that while EXT4_JOURNAL_DATA_FL and 308 EXT4_EXTENTS_FL can be set with setattr, they are not in the kernel's 309 EXT4_FL_USER_MODIFIABLE mask, since it needs to handle the setting of 310 these flags in a special manner and they are masked out of the set of 311 flags that are saved directly to i_flags. 312 313.. _i_osd1: 314 315The ``osd1`` field has multiple meanings depending on the creator: 316 317Linux: 318 319.. list-table:: 320 :widths: 8 8 24 40 321 :header-rows: 1 322 323 * - Offset 324 - Size 325 - Name 326 - Description 327 * - 0x0 328 - __le32 329 - l_i_version 330 - Inode version. However, if the EA_INODE inode flag is set, this inode 331 stores an extended attribute value and this field contains the upper 32 332 bits of the attribute value's reference count. 333 334Hurd: 335 336.. list-table:: 337 :widths: 8 8 24 40 338 :header-rows: 1 339 340 * - Offset 341 - Size 342 - Name 343 - Description 344 * - 0x0 345 - __le32 346 - h_i_translator 347 - ?? 348 349Masix: 350 351.. list-table:: 352 :widths: 8 8 24 40 353 :header-rows: 1 354 355 * - Offset 356 - Size 357 - Name 358 - Description 359 * - 0x0 360 - __le32 361 - m_i_reserved 362 - ?? 363 364.. _i_osd2: 365 366The ``osd2`` field has multiple meanings depending on the filesystem creator: 367 368Linux: 369 370.. list-table:: 371 :widths: 8 8 24 40 372 :header-rows: 1 373 374 * - Offset 375 - Size 376 - Name 377 - Description 378 * - 0x0 379 - __le16 380 - l_i_blocks_high 381 - Upper 16-bits of the block count. Please see the note attached to 382 i_blocks_lo. 383 * - 0x2 384 - __le16 385 - l_i_file_acl_high 386 - Upper 16-bits of the extended attribute block (historically, the file 387 ACL location). See the Extended Attributes section below. 388 * - 0x4 389 - __le16 390 - l_i_uid_high 391 - Upper 16-bits of the Owner UID. 392 * - 0x6 393 - __le16 394 - l_i_gid_high 395 - Upper 16-bits of the GID. 396 * - 0x8 397 - __le16 398 - l_i_checksum_lo 399 - Lower 16-bits of the inode checksum. 400 * - 0xA 401 - __le16 402 - l_i_reserved 403 - Unused. 404 405Hurd: 406 407.. list-table:: 408 :widths: 8 8 24 40 409 :header-rows: 1 410 411 * - Offset 412 - Size 413 - Name 414 - Description 415 * - 0x0 416 - __le16 417 - h_i_reserved1 418 - ?? 419 * - 0x2 420 - __u16 421 - h_i_mode_high 422 - Upper 16-bits of the file mode. 423 * - 0x4 424 - __le16 425 - h_i_uid_high 426 - Upper 16-bits of the Owner UID. 427 * - 0x6 428 - __le16 429 - h_i_gid_high 430 - Upper 16-bits of the GID. 431 * - 0x8 432 - __u32 433 - h_i_author 434 - Author code? 435 436Masix: 437 438.. list-table:: 439 :widths: 8 8 24 40 440 :header-rows: 1 441 442 * - Offset 443 - Size 444 - Name 445 - Description 446 * - 0x0 447 - __le16 448 - h_i_reserved1 449 - ?? 450 * - 0x2 451 - __u16 452 - m_i_file_acl_high 453 - Upper 16-bits of the extended attribute block (historically, the file 454 ACL location). 455 * - 0x4 456 - __u32 457 - m_i_reserved2[2] 458 - ?? 459 460Inode Size 461~~~~~~~~~~ 462 463In ext2 and ext3, the inode structure size was fixed at 128 bytes 464(``EXT2_GOOD_OLD_INODE_SIZE``) and each inode had a disk record size of 465128 bytes. Starting with ext4, it is possible to allocate a larger 466on-disk inode at format time for all inodes in the filesystem to provide 467space beyond the end of the original ext2 inode. The on-disk inode 468record size is recorded in the superblock as ``s_inode_size``. The 469number of bytes actually used by struct ext4_inode beyond the original 470128-byte ext2 inode is recorded in the ``i_extra_isize`` field for each 471inode, which allows struct ext4_inode to grow for a new kernel without 472having to upgrade all of the on-disk inodes. Access to fields beyond 473EXT2_GOOD_OLD_INODE_SIZE should be verified to be within 474``i_extra_isize``. By default, ext4 inode records are 256 bytes, and (as 475of August 2019) the inode structure is 160 bytes 476(``i_extra_isize = 32``). The extra space between the end of the inode 477structure and the end of the inode record can be used to store extended 478attributes. Each inode record can be as large as the filesystem block 479size, though this is not terribly efficient. 480 481Finding an Inode 482~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 483 484Each block group contains ``sb->s_inodes_per_group`` inodes. Because 485inode 0 is defined not to exist, this formula can be used to find the 486block group that an inode lives in: 487``bg = (inode_num - 1) / sb->s_inodes_per_group``. The particular inode 488can be found within the block group's inode table at 489``index = (inode_num - 1) % sb->s_inodes_per_group``. To get the byte 490address within the inode table, use 491``offset = index * sb->s_inode_size``. 492 493Inode Timestamps 494~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 495 496Four timestamps are recorded in the lower 128 bytes of the inode 497structure -- inode change time (ctime), access time (atime), data 498modification time (mtime), and deletion time (dtime). The four fields 499are 32-bit signed integers that represent seconds since the Unix epoch 500(1970-01-01 00:00:00 GMT), which means that the fields will overflow in 501January 2038. If the filesystem does not have orphan_file feature, inodes 502that are not linked from any directory but are still open (orphan inodes) have 503the dtime field overloaded for use with the orphan list. The superblock field 504``s_last_orphan`` points to the first inode in the orphan list; dtime is then 505the number of the next orphaned inode, or zero if there are no more orphans. 506 507If the inode structure size ``sb->s_inode_size`` is larger than 128 508bytes and the ``i_inode_extra`` field is large enough to encompass the 509respective ``i_[cma]time_extra`` field, the ctime, atime, and mtime 510inode fields are widened to 64 bits. Within this “extra” 32-bit field, 511the lower two bits are used to extend the 32-bit seconds field to be 34 512bit wide; the upper 30 bits are used to provide nanosecond timestamp 513accuracy. Therefore, timestamps should not overflow until May 2446. 514dtime was not widened. There is also a fifth timestamp to record inode 515creation time (crtime); this field is 64-bits wide and decoded in the 516same manner as 64-bit [cma]time. Neither crtime nor dtime are accessible 517through the regular stat() interface, though debugfs will report them. 518 519We use the 32-bit signed time value plus (2^32 * (extra epoch bits)). 520In other words: 521 522.. list-table:: 523 :widths: 20 20 20 20 20 524 :header-rows: 1 525 526 * - Extra epoch bits 527 - MSB of 32-bit time 528 - Adjustment for signed 32-bit to 64-bit tv_sec 529 - Decoded 64-bit tv_sec 530 - valid time range 531 * - 0 0 532 - 1 533 - 0 534 - ``-0x80000000 - -0x00000001`` 535 - 1901-12-13 to 1969-12-31 536 * - 0 0 537 - 0 538 - 0 539 - ``0x000000000 - 0x07fffffff`` 540 - 1970-01-01 to 2038-01-19 541 * - 0 1 542 - 1 543 - 0x100000000 544 - ``0x080000000 - 0x0ffffffff`` 545 - 2038-01-19 to 2106-02-07 546 * - 0 1 547 - 0 548 - 0x100000000 549 - ``0x100000000 - 0x17fffffff`` 550 - 2106-02-07 to 2174-02-25 551 * - 1 0 552 - 1 553 - 0x200000000 554 - ``0x180000000 - 0x1ffffffff`` 555 - 2174-02-25 to 2242-03-16 556 * - 1 0 557 - 0 558 - 0x200000000 559 - ``0x200000000 - 0x27fffffff`` 560 - 2242-03-16 to 2310-04-04 561 * - 1 1 562 - 1 563 - 0x300000000 564 - ``0x280000000 - 0x2ffffffff`` 565 - 2310-04-04 to 2378-04-22 566 * - 1 1 567 - 0 568 - 0x300000000 569 - ``0x300000000 - 0x37fffffff`` 570 - 2378-04-22 to 2446-05-10 571 572This is a somewhat odd encoding since there are effectively seven times 573as many positive values as negative values. There have also been 574long-standing bugs decoding and encoding dates beyond 2038, which don't 575seem to be fixed as of kernel 3.12 and e2fsprogs 1.42.8. 64-bit kernels 576incorrectly use the extra epoch bits 1,1 for dates between 1901 and 5771970. At some point the kernel will be fixed and e2fsck will fix this 578situation, assuming that it is run before 2310. 579