[TUHS] inodes, inumbers, and versions

[Bakul Shah via TUHS]

> On Feb 6, 2026, at 10:14 AM, Ronald Natalie via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> The inode is the essence of the file (pretty much everything other than its name).  If it got reused while someone was still referencing it they got the wrong file.

The in-core refcount of # of opens (i_count, not i_nlink) protects against
this. Even if you do "rm foo", foo's inode is not freed if someone has foo
open. Its inode is freed only after the last close. [Least how it was in v7).

You do have ensure that the FS structure is consistent after a crash.