A system administrator is investigating unauthorized changes to a critical configuration file. The administrator needs to determine the last time the file's metadata, such as its permissions or ownership, was altered. The content of the file itself does not appear to have been modified. Which field in the output of the stat command provides this specific information?
The correct answer is Change. The stat command displays several timestamps for a file. The Change time (ctime) is updated whenever the file's inode information (metadata) is altered. This includes changes to permissions (chmod), ownership (chown), or file name. The Modify time (mtime) is updated only when the content of the file itself is changed. The Access time (atime) is updated when the file is last read or accessed. The Links field shows the number of hard links to the file and is not a timestamp. Therefore, to see when permissions or ownership last changed, the administrator must check the Change time.
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What is the difference between ctime and mtime in the `stat` command?
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What does the `atime` field in the `stat` command represent?
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What is the `Links` field in the `stat` command output, and how is it different from timestamps?
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