UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hi
i have a hardlink how can i find the source of it

There is a find option called -samefile for GNU find. Read this:
Hard Links - Finding Files
and try it out. It will compare the inodes of the file you give to all other that find will stumble upon.

If you don't have that find, I would check it's Inode manually with ls -li and search the filesystem with find looking for this inode. Hardlinks can't pass filesystem boundaries so it's kinda easy/limited search.

As hinted by zaxxon , the "find" syntax depends on the Operating System.

Display the inode number of the file with "ls".

Code:

ls -i filename

Inode numbers are only unique within mountpoints.

Then use the "find" command to search the mountpoint containing the file by inode number (-inum number) and use the "find" switch to keep the search within the mountpoint (-xdev in some versions, -mount in some other versions).