Link Count

Each inode contains a count of the number of directory entries linked to it. The fsck program verifies the link count of each inode by examining the entire directory structure, starting from the root directory, and calculating an actual link count for each inode.

Discrepancies between the link count stored in the inode and the actual link count as determined by fsck may be of three types:

• The stored count is not 0 and the actual count is 0.

  This condition can occur if no directory entry exists for the inode. In this case, fsck puts the disconnected file in the lost+found directory.

• The stored count is not 0 and the actual count is not 0, but the counts are unequal.

  This condition can occur if a directory entry has been added or removed but the inode has not been updated. In this case, fsck replaces the stored link count with the actual link count.

• The stored count is 0 and the actual count is not 0.

  In this case fsck changes the link count of the inode to the actual count.