NAMEI

namei - follow a pathname until a terminal point is found

namei [options] pathname...

Namei uses its arguments as pathnames to any type of Unix file (symlinks, files, directories, and so forth). Namei then follows each pathname until a terminal point is found (a file, directory, char device, etc). If it finds a symbolic link, we show the link, and start following it, indenting the output to show the context.

This program is useful for finding a "too many levels of symbolic links" problems.

For each line output, namei outputs a the following characters to identify the file types found:

   f: = the pathname we are currently trying to resolve
    d = directory
    l = symbolic link (both the link and it’s contents are output)
    s = socket
    b = block device
    c = character device
    p = FIFO (named pipe)
    - = regular file
    ? = an error of some kind

Namei prints an informative message when the maximum number of symbolic links this system can have has been exceeded.

−l, −−long

Use a long listing format (same as -m -o -v).

−m, −−modes

Show the mode bits of each file type in the style of ls(1), for example ’rwxr-xr-x’.

−o, −−owners

Show owner and group name of each file.

−n, −−nosymlinks

Don’t follow symlinks.

−v, −−vertical

Vertical align of modes and owners.

−x, −−mountpoints

Show mount point directories with a ’D’, rather than a ’d’.

The original namei program was written by Roger Southwick <rogers@amadeus.wr.tek.com>.

The program was re-written by Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>.

To be discovered.

ls(1), stat(1)

The namei command is part of the util-linux-ng package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/.