Everything is a file in linux

Regular Files

• Common type of files
• Code, shell scripts, images Directory Files
• /home, /root Special Files
• Character Files
  • Devices under /dev directory
  • This allows the OS to communicate with IO devices serially
  • Example includes devices like mouse and keyboard
• Block Files
  • located under /dev
  • Reads from and writes to hardware devices in blocks (chunks of data)
  • Harddisks and Ram
• Links
  • Hard links
    • Two or more files that share the same block of data in the disk
    • Deleting the last link will delete the data
  • Symbolic links (soft links)
    • Act as pointers to another file
    • Deleting a sym link will not delete the data
• Socket
  • Enables the communication between two processes
• Named Pipes
  • Special type of file that allows connecting one process as input to other
  • The data flow is unidirectional

file command identifies the type of given file

ls -al The first character will denote the type of file

d directory - regular file c character device l link s socket p pipe b block device