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NAME | SYNOPSIS | OVERVIEW | DESCRIPTION | NOTES | CAVEATS | AUTHOR | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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ATTR(1) XFS Compatibility API ATTR(1)
attr - extended attributes on XFS filesystem objects
attr [ -LRSq ] -s attrname [ -V attrvalue ] pathname
attr [ -LRSq ] -g attrname pathname
attr [ -LRSq ] -r attrname pathname
attr [ -LRSq ] -l pathname
Extended attributes implement the ability for a user to attach
name:value pairs to objects within the XFS filesystem.
This document describes the attr command, which is mostly
compatible with the IRIX command of the same name. It is thus
aimed specifically at users of the XFS filesystem - for filesystem
independent extended attribute manipulation, consult the
getfattr(1) and setfattr(1) documentation.
Extended attributes can be used to store meta-information about
the file. For example "character-set=kanji" could tell a document
browser to use the Kanji character set when displaying that
document and "thumbnail=..." could provide a reduced resolution
overview of a high resolution graphic image.
In the XFS filesystem, the names can be up to 256 bytes in length,
terminated by the first 0 byte. The intent is that they be
printable ASCII (or other character set) names for the attribute.
The values can be up to 64KB of arbitrary binary data.
Attributes can be attached to all types of XFS inodes: regular
files, directories, symbolic links, device nodes, etc.
XFS uses 2 disjoint attribute name spaces associated with every
filesystem object. They are the root and user address spaces.
The root address space is accessible only to the superuser, and
then only by specifying a flag argument to the function call.
Other users will not see or be able to modify attributes in the
root address space. The user address space is protected by the
normal file permissions mechanism, so the owner of the file can
decide who is able to see and/or modify the value of attributes on
any particular file.
The attr utility allows the manipulation of extended attributes
associated with filesystem objects from within shell scripts.
There are four main operations that attr can perform:
GET The -g attrname option tells attr to search the named
object and print (to stdout) the value associated with that
attribute name. With the -q flag, stdout will be exactly
and only the value of the attribute, suitable for storage
directly into a file or processing via a piped command.
LIST The -l option tells attr to list the names of all the
attributes that are associated with the object, and the
number of bytes in the value of each of those attributes.
With the -q flag, stdout will be a simple list of only the
attribute names, one per line, suitable for input into a
script.
REMOVE The -r attrname option tells attr to remove an attribute
with the given name from the object if the attribute
exists. There is no output on successful completion.
SET/CREATE
The -s attrname option tells attr to set the named
attribute of the object to the value read from stdin. If
an attribute with that name already exists, its value will
be replaced with this one. If an attribute with that name
does not already exist, one will be created with this
value. With the -V attrvalue flag, the attribute will be
set to have a value of attrvalue and stdin will not be
read. With the -q flag, stdout will not be used. Without
the -q flag, a message showing the attribute name and the
entire value will be printed.
When the -L option is given and the named object is a symbolic
link, operate on the attributes of the object referenced by the
symbolic link. Without this option, operate on the attributes of
the symbolic link itself.
When the -R option is given and the process has appropriate
privileges, operate in the root attribute namespace rather that
the USER attribute namespace.
The -S option is similar, except it specifies use of the security
attribute namespace.
When the -q option is given attr will try to keep quiet. It will
output error messages (to stderr) but will not print status
messages (to stdout).
The standard file interchange/archive programs tar(1), and cpio(1)
will not archive or restore extended attributes, while the
xfsdump(8) program will.
The list option present in the IRIX version of this command is not
supported. getfattr provides a mechanism to retrieve all of the
attribute names.
Andreas Gruenbacher, <[email protected]> and the SGI
XFS development team, <[email protected]>.
Please send your bug reports or comments to
<https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=attr > or <acl-
[email protected]>.
getfattr(1), setfattr(1), attr_get(3), attr_set(3), attr_multi(3),
attr_remove(3), xattr(7), xfsdump(8)
This page is part of the attr (manipulating filesystem extended
attributes) project. Information about the project can be found
at ⟨http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/attr⟩. If you have a bug
report for this manual page, see
⟨http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=attr⟩. This page was
obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/attr.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-06-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
Dec 2001 Extended Attributes ATTR(1)
Pages that refer to this page: attr_get(3), attr_list(3), attr_multi(3), attr_remove(3), attr_set(3), xattr(7), mount(8), xfsdump(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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