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 (symlinks, 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  identify  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
              Output help text and exit.

       -V, --version
              Output 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/.