An inode contains all the information about a file except its name, which is kept in a directory. An inode is 128 bytes. The inode information is kept in the cylinder information block, and contains:
The type of the file
Regular
Directory
Block special
Character special
Symbolic link
FIFO, also known as named pipe
Socket
The mode of the file (the set of read-write-execute permissions)
The number of hard links to the file
The User ID of the owner of the file
The Group ID to which the file belongs
The number of bytes in the file
An array of 15 disk-block addresses
The date and time the file was last accessed
The date and time the file was last modified
The date and time the file was created
The array of 15 disk addresses (0 to 14) point to the data blocks that store the contents of the file. The first 12 are direct addresses; that is, they point directly to the first 12 logical storage blocks of the contents of the file. If the file is larger than 12 logical blocks, the 13th address points to an indirect block, which contains direct block addresses instead of file contents. The 14th address points to a double indirect block, which contains addresses of indirect blocks. The 15th address is for triple indirect addresses, if they are ever needed. Figure 32-1 shows this chaining of address blocks starting from the inode.