NAMEI

Section: User Commands (1)
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NAME

namei - follow a pathname until a terminal point is found

SYNOPSIS

namei [-mx] pathname [ pathname ... ]

DESCRIPTION

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
    - = 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.

OPTIONS

-x: Show mount point directories with a 'D', rather than a 'd'.
-m: Show the mode bits of each file type in the style of ls(1), for example 'rwxr-xr-x'.

AUTHOR

Roger Southwick (rogers@amadeus.wr.tek.com)

BUGS

To be discovered.

CAVEATS

Namei will follow an infinite loop of symbolic links forever. To escape, use SIGINT (usually ^C).

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 07:18:41 GMT, November 01, 2025