File Types in Linux#

Think about a library. It has a lot of books – there would be children’s books, magazines, graphic novels, encyclopedias, mystery novels, etc. But they are all books. Here book is a blanket term for every type of it. On a Linux computer, every single file or directory that you see is referred to by the blanket term file. This means that a directory is also a type of file. Interesting, right? There are more types of files that a Linux system works with. This blog post introduces you to the different types of files on a Linux system.

What are the various file types in Linux?#

There are seven different types of files on a Linux system.

1. Regular File#

The first type is a regular file. This can be text files, json files, csv files, source code files, shell scripts, etc. How can we find out whether a file is a regular file or not? By looking at the file’s permission string. This post introduces you to Linux file permissions.

The following screenshot represents how the security information for sample.txt is viewed using ls command. User spark is currently logged into the computer and is within the /test folder.

Note the first character of the permission string, it always indicates the file type. In the output shown below, the first character in the permission string is a hyphen (-), which indicates that this file is a regular file.

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2. Directory#

The second type we will consider is directory, which is also referred to as folder. Within the same /test folder is a directory called mydirectory. The security information for all the contents of /test can be viewed simply by issuing ls -l command without a name following it. When used this way, ls -l will print the security information for all the files and folders in the current directory.

From the following screenshot, notice the first character in the permission string for mydirectory. There is a d. For a directory, the file type in the permission string is always denoted by a d.

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3. Block File#

The next file type is block file. Every computer has a hard disk. Every time you read a file or write to a file, you interact with the hard disk. On Linux systems, this interaction is assisted by block files.

Data is read from and written to a hard disk in blocks with the help of block files. For every hard disk attached to your computer, you will find a block file in /dev directory.

Currently, user spark is in the /dev directory.

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Every hard disk is assigned a name of the form sdX, where X stands for a, b, c and so on; depending on the number of devices attached to the computer. The first hard disk identified by Linux is assigned the name sda. If you attach an external hard disk, it would be assigned the name sdb.

There is one hard disk in spark’s computer, it has been named sda. In the following screenshot, notice the first character in the permission string. A block file is always assigned as b.

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4. Character Device File#

A character device file helps to interact with hardware devices attached to your computer. Some examples of hardware devices are keyboard, mouse and serial interface devices. Interaction with hardware devices occurs character by character, which is performed with the help of character device files.

In the following screenshot, hidraw0 corresponds to a USB mouse attached to spark’s computer. Note the first character in the permission string. Character device files are always identified with a c.

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6. Socket File#

Socket files are typically created by the system for inter-process communication or network communication. The following screenshot represents the security information for a socket file kubelet.sock. Notice the s as the first character in the permission string. In this post, we will not dive into the use of this file kubelet.sock.

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7. Pipe File#

Pipe files are used to send data between processes. These files always have p as the first character in the permission string, as shown in the following screenshot for file initctl.

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Why should a cybersecurity professional know about the file types in Linux?#

Regardless of the cybersecurity domain you are working on, you will encounter situations where you will have to work with the Linux command line. Knowing how to identify file types will come in handy anytime.

There is a command called file. Here is a project idea for you.

  • Set up Ubuntu or Cent OS or Fedora on a virtual machine

  • Identify files of different types on your VM

  • Research how file command works

  • Run file against every file and see what information is printed about its type

  • Compare the results of file and ls -l for every file