nixCraft

Hi,

Can anyone pls explain me the concept behind the link count in Linux

-sh-3.00$ ls -lrt
total 194
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 12 2004 srv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 12 2004 mnt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 12 2004 initrd
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 12 2004 home
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 24 2005 misc
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Jun 26 2006 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 26 2006 selinux
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 26 2006 post
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 1024 Jun 26 2006 boot
drwxr-xr-x 28 root root 4096 Nov 2 2006 var
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 Feb 15 2008 usr
drwxr-xr-x 12 mqm mqm 4096 Sep 26 12:58 mqm
drwxr-xr-x 35 root root 4096 Nov 20 19:42 opt
dr-xr-xr-x 8570 root root 0 Nov 23 13:53 proc
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 0 Nov 23 13:53 sys
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 6100 Nov 23 13:57 dev
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Nov 23 13:57 media
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 7 04:23 bin
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Dec 7 04:23 lib
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Dec 7 04:23 sbin
drwxr-x--- 3 root root 4096 Dec 10 04:15 root
drwxr-xr-x 61 root root 12288 Dec 11 04:02 etc
drwxrwxrwt 7 root root 4096 Dec 11 12:24 tmp

for above output, I do see that /etc has 61 link count where are sbin has 2. Is there any reason for this..

Are you talking about soft links or hard links?

__________________
Vivek Gite
Linux Evangelist
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Hi,

I am refering to the number 2 in the below output. Please let me know if you have any question.

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 12 2004 srv

well yes the question of sir is right.
whom ur refereing to soft or hard links......

but yes they r links..
2 is default ie. "." ".."
"."--->means current directory or location.
".."--->means the previous directory

giv it try
[user@home]$ls . #check the output

[user@home]$ls .. #and now check the output.

c the difference betwen them ..

when ur in some directory u will notice these two links always "." ".." . n they ill b their always. to c them in dir

[user@home]$ l. #its small L with siingle dot

so u always have two links one refrin to ur current directory and other one to ur current directory's parent, i.e one directory behind, or back, or whatever suitable to u....

and more than two it means its havin many links....those can b hard n soft....


i m not sure i m truly right....

__________________
striving hard to GAIN.

2 is number of links. A normal Unix / Linux filesystem has at least 2 hard links: its name and its . entry. Additionally, its subdirectories (if any) each have a .. entry linked to that directory.

Hard links are indicated with the number of links counter. To verify this do as follows:
You should see 2 as counter, now create one more directory inside foo
You should see 3 as counter (4-1)


Hope this helps!

__________________
Vivek Gite
Linux Evangelist
Be proud RHEL user, and let the world know about your enterprise choices! Join RedHat user group.
Always use CODE tags for posting system output and commands!
Do you run a Linux? Let's face it, you need help