How to remove files using inode number?

An inode is a data structure on a filesystem, which provides the info about the file’s metadata like file permissions, ownership, file type, block details, attributes.

Please run the following command to view the details of the inode number of files located in the present working directory.

arunlal@lintechops:/var/log$ ls -li
 total 12496
  524493 -rw-r--r--  1 root              root               1445 Dec 24 14:52 alternatives.log
  524621 -rw-r--r--  1 root              root               5635 Nov 15 13:59 alternatives.log.1
  524750 -rw-r--r--  1 root              root                396 Feb 28  2019 alternatives.log.10.gz
  524353 -rw-r--r--  1 root              root                258 Jan 25  2019 alternatives.log.11.gz
  524488 -rw-r--r--  1 root              root                353 Dec 12  2018 alternatives.log.12.gz
  524948 -rw-r--r--  1 root              root                408 Oct 31 15:35 alternatives.log.2.gz
  524513 -rw-r--r--  1 root              root                518 Sep 25 15:01 alternatives.log.3.gz

If you want to know about the inode number of a single file, please run the following command.

arunlal@lintechops:/var/log$ ls -i alternatives.log.10.gz
 524750 alternatives.log.10.gz

If you wish to remove the file using inode number please run the following command.

arunlal@lintechops:/var/log$ find . -inum 524750 -exec rm -i {} \;