NAME

       namei - follow a pathname until a terminal point is found

SYNOPSIS

       namei [options] pathname...

DESCRIPTION

       namei interprets 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'.

       -n, --nosymlinks
           Don’t follow symlinks.

       -o, --owners
           Show owner and group name of each file.

       -v, --vertical
           Vertically align the modes and owners.

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

       -Z, --context
           Show security context of the file or "?" if not available. The support for security
           contexts is optional and does not have to be compiled to the namei binary.

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

       -V, --version
           Print version and exit.

BUGS

       To be discovered.

AUTHORS

       The original namei program was written by Roger Southwick <rogers@amadeus.wr.tek.com>.

       The program was rewritten by Karel Zak Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>.

SEE ALSO

       ls(1), stat(1), symlink(7)

REPORTING BUGS

       For bug reports, use the issue tracker at https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues.

AVAILABILITY

       The namei command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux
       Kernel Archive <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.