File contents and metadata When you change permissions on a file, the file contents aren't affected. The change is made to the i-node. So what's an inode? A quick visit to Wikipedia explains: "An inode stores all the information about a regular   file ,   directory , or other   file system object, except its data and name. " - inode, from Wikpedia All of that file "header" information is known as metadata. Here's how it is explained by the whitepaper, Inproving Database Performance with the AIX Concurrent I/O . My emphases... [More]

Tags:  ls ctime file mtime aix lock istat inode contents find metadata