NAMEI(1)                         User Commands                        NAMEI(1)



NAME
       namei - follow a pathname until a terminal point is found

SYNOPSIS
       namei [options] pathname...

DESCRIPTION
       namei  uses  its  arguments as pathnames to any type of Unix file (sym-
       links, files, directories, and so  forth).   namei  then  follows  each
       pathname  until  an  endpoint  is  found (a file, a directory, a device
       node, etc).  If it finds a symbolic link, it shows the link, and starts
       following it, indenting the output to show the context.

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

       For each line of output, namei uses the following characters  to  iden-
       tify the file type found:

          f: = the pathname currently being resolved
           d = directory
           l = symbolic link (both the link and its 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.

OPTIONS
       -l, --long
              Use the 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
              Vertically align the modes and owners.

       -x, --mountpoints
              Show mountpoint directories with a 'D' rather than a 'd'.

       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

AUTHOR
       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>.

BUGS
       To be discovered.

SEE ALSO
       ls(1), stat(1)

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



util-linux                         June 2011                          NAMEI(1)
