Re: glibc is the culprit - Re: vfs.txt and i_ino

[Anton Altaparmakov]

At 15:40 12/02/02, Guest section DW wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at 01:04:13PM +0100, Rogier Wolff wrote:
> > > It is probably best to avoid giving real files ino 0.
> >
> > Problem is: It is NOT a real file. It's the '$MFT'. It is normally
> > hidden from userspace, but with a special option it becomes (partly,
> > as we've seen) visible.
>
> But I do not know anything about '$MFT'.

It is basically a normal file with inode number 0 (this is defined in the 
ntfs specifications) which contains all metadata concerning all inodes 
(including the metadata describing the $MFT itself[1]).

Best regards,

Anton

[1] Yes, this is a circular reference, but the partition's bootsector 
contains sufficient information to resolve it unambiguously by pointing you 
to the disk sectors containing the metadata for $MFT itself). This is also 
why it has to be inode zero, otherwise the resolution of the circular 
reference wouldn't work any more.


--
  "I've not lost my mind. It's backed up on tape somewhere." - Unknown
--
Anton Altaparmakov <aia21 at cam.ac.uk> (replace at with @)
Linux NTFS Maintainer / WWW: http://linux-ntfs.sf.net/
ICQ: 8561279 / WWW: http://www-stu.christs.cam.ac.uk/~aia21/