inodeonly
The term "inodeonly" refers to a configuration option in some Linux-based file systems, particularly those using the inode data structure to manage files. An inode (index node) is a data structure that stores metadata about files, such as permissions, ownership, timestamps, and disk location, rather than the actual file content. The "inodeonly" option is primarily associated with the **ext4** file system and is used in conjunction with the **overlayfs** (overlay file system) to optimize performance in certain scenarios.
When enabled, "inodeonly" allows overlayfs to operate in a mode where only the inode metadata is copied
The "inodeonly" option is typically specified in the mount command for overlayfs, alongside the upper and lower
`mount -t overlay overlay -o lowerdir=/lower,upperdir=/upper,workdir=/work,inodeonly overlayfs /merged`
However, it is important to note that "inodeonly" is not universally supported across all Linux distributions