1NAMEI(1)                         User Commands                        NAMEI(1)
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NAME

6       namei - follow a pathname until a terminal point is found
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SYNOPSIS

9       namei [options] pathname...
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DESCRIPTION

12       namei  interprets  its  arguments as pathnames to any type of Unix file
13       (symlinks, files, directories, and so forth).  namei then follows  each
14       pathname  until  an  endpoint  is  found (a file, a directory, a device
15       node, etc).  If it finds a symbolic link, it shows the link, and starts
16       following it, indenting the output to show the context.
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18       This  program is useful for finding "too many levels of symbolic links"
19       problems.
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21       For each line of output, namei uses the following characters  to  iden‐
22       tify the file type found:
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24          f: = the pathname currently being resolved
25           d = directory
26           l = symbolic link (both the link and its contents are output)
27           s = socket
28           b = block device
29           c = character device
30           p = FIFO (named pipe)
31           - = regular file
32           ? = an error of some kind
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34       namei prints an informative message when the maximum number of symbolic
35       links this system can have has been exceeded.
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OPTIONS

38       -l, --long
39              Use the long listing format (same as -m -o -v).
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41       -m, --modes
42              Show the mode bits of each file type in the style of ls(1),  for
43              example 'rwxr-xr-x'.
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45       -n, --nosymlinks
46              Don't follow symlinks.
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48       -o, --owners
49              Show owner and group name of each file.
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51       -v, --vertical
52              Vertically align the modes and owners.
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54       -x, --mountpoints
55              Show mountpoint directories with a 'D' rather than a 'd'.
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57       -V, --version
58              Display version information and exit.
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60       -h, --help
61              Display help text and exit.
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AUTHOR

64       The   original   namei   program   was   written   by  Roger  Southwick
65       <rogers@amadeus.wr.tek.com>.
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67       The program was rewritten by Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>.
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BUGS

70       To be discovered.
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SEE ALSO

73       ls(1), stat(1), symlink(7)
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AVAILABILITY

76       The namei command is part of the util-linux package  and  is  available
77       from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
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81util-linux                         June 2011                          NAMEI(1)