Finding hardlinked file.

[echong]

I want to list all files in a directory that is hardlinked to any other files anywhere in my system. Is there a simple command to do that besides writing a script?

Thanks.

[Antoanetta Naghiu]

find / -name -exec ls -F |grep @ {} ;
(see man ls, F option).

[Anthony deRito]

Eric, i can give you what I know. The difference between the listing of a hard link vs a soft link is in the second field of a long list. The second field shows you the number of links if any.

For example:

#touch /tmp/test
#ll /tmp/test
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root sys 0 Aug 21 15:26 test

#ln /tmp/test /tmp/test5
#ll /tmp/test*
-rw-rw-r-- 2 root sys 0 Aug 21 15:26 test
-rw-rw-r-- 2 root sys 0 Aug 21 15:26 test5

Notice field 2 changed from 1 to 2. You know that a hard link has been created and there are now 2 filenames pionting to the same data.

I won't get into using this info in a script but just thought I would share it.

Tony

[RikTytgat · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Hard linked files must always be on the same file system.

First, determine the inode number of the file for which you want to determine the hard linked files:

ls -i your_filename

The inode is listed.

Then, use find to find all files having that same inode number:

find /your/directory -xdev -inum your_inode

That should do the trick.

Bye,
Rik.

[Wodisch]

Eric,
how about something like:

dev=`devnm .| cut -d' ' -f1`
ls -i1 * | while read inum name ; do echo $name; ncheck -a -i $inum $dev ";"; done

that should find all hardlinks of all files in your working directory.
HTH,
Wodisch