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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | ATTRIBUTES | AUTHOR | BUGS AND LIMITATIONS | AVAILABILITY | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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CHATTR(1) General Commands Manual CHATTR(1)
chattr - change file attributes on a Linux file system
chattr [ -RVf ] [ -v version ] [ -p project ] [ mode ] files...
chattr changes the file attributes on a Linux file system.
The format of a symbolic mode is +-=[aAcCdDeFijmPsStTux].
The operator '+' causes the selected attributes to be added to the
existing attributes of the files; '-' causes them to be removed;
and '=' causes them to be the only attributes that the files have.
The letters 'aAcCdDeFijmPsStTux' select the new attributes for the
files: append only (a), no atime updates (A), compressed (c), no
copy on write (C), no dump (d), synchronous directory updates (D),
extent format (e), case-insensitive directory lookups (F),
immutable (i), data journaling (j), don't compress (m), project
hierarchy (P), secure deletion (s), synchronous updates (S), no
tail-merging (t), top of directory hierarchy (T), undeletable (u),
and direct access for files (x).
The following attributes are read-only, and may be listed by
lsattr(1) but not modified by chattr: encrypted (E), indexed
directory (I), inline data (N), and verity (V).
Not all flags are supported or utilized by all file systems; refer
to file system-specific man pages such as btrfs(5), ext4(5),
mkfs.f2fs(8), and xfs(5) for more file system-specific details.
-R Recursively change attributes of directories and their
contents.
-V Be verbose with chattr's output and print the program
version.
-f Suppress most error messages.
-v version
Set the file's version/generation number.
-p project
Set the file's project number.
a A file with the 'a' attribute set can only be opened in
append mode for writing. Only the superuser or a process
possessing the CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE capability can set or
clear this attribute.
A When a file with the 'A' attribute set is accessed, its
atime record is not modified. This avoids a certain amount
of disk I/O for laptop systems.
c A file with the 'c' attribute set is automatically
compressed on the disk by the kernel. A read from this
file returns uncompressed data. A write to this file
compresses data before storing them on the disk. Note:
please make sure to read the bugs and limitations section
at the end of this document. (Note: For btrfs, If the 'c'
flag is set, then the 'C' flag cannot be set. Also
conflicts with btrfs mount option 'nodatasum')
C A file with the 'C' attribute set will not be subject to
copy-on-write updates. This flag is only supported on file
systems which perform copy-on-write. (Note: For btrfs, the
'C' flag should be set on new or empty files. If it is set
on a file which already has data blocks, it is undefined
when the blocks assigned to the file will be fully stable.
If the 'C' flag is set on a directory, it will have no
effect on the directory, but new files created in that
directory will have the No_COW attribute set. If the 'C'
flag is set, then the 'c' flag cannot be set.)
d A file with the 'd' attribute set is not a candidate for
backup when the dump(8) program is run.
D When a directory with the 'D' attribute set is modified,
the changes are written synchronously to the disk; this is
equivalent to the 'dirsync' mount option applied to a
subset of the files.
e The 'e' attribute indicates that the file is using extents
for mapping the blocks on disk. It may not be removed
using chattr(1).
E A file, directory, or symlink with the 'E' attribute set is
encrypted by the file system. This attribute may not be
set or cleared using chattr(1), although it can be
displayed by lsattr(1).
F A directory with the 'F' attribute set indicates that all
the path lookups inside that directory are made in a case-
insensitive fashion. This attribute can only be changed in
empty directories on file systems with the casefold feature
enabled.
i A file with the 'i' attribute cannot be modified: it cannot
be deleted or renamed, no link can be created to this file,
most of the file's metadata can not be modified, and the
file can not be opened in write mode. Only the superuser
or a process possessing the CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE capability
can set or clear this attribute.
I The 'I' attribute is used by the htree code to indicate
that a directory is being indexed using hashed trees. It
may not be set or cleared using chattr(1), although it can
be displayed by lsattr(1).
j A file with the 'j' attribute has all of its data written
to the ext3 or ext4 journal before being written to the
file itself, if the file system is mounted with the
"data=ordered" or "data=writeback" options and the file
system has a journal. When the file system is mounted with
the "data=journal" option all file data is already
journalled and this attribute has no effect. Only the
superuser or a process possessing the CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
capability can set or clear this attribute.
m A file with the 'm' attribute is excluded from compression
on file systems that support per-file compression.
N A file with the 'N' attribute set indicates that the file
has data stored inline, within the inode itself. It may not
be set or cleared using chattr(1), although it can be
displayed by lsattr(1).
P A directory with the 'P' attribute set will enforce a
hierarchical structure for project id's. This means that
files and directories created in the directory will inherit
the project id of the directory, rename operations are
constrained so when a file or directory is moved into
another directory, that the project ids must match. In
addition, a hard link to file can only be created when the
project id for the file and the destination directory
match.
s When a file with the 's' attribute set is deleted, its
blocks are zeroed and written back to the disk. Note:
please make sure to read the bugs and limitations section
at the end of this document.
S When a file with the 'S' attribute set is modified, the
changes are written synchronously to the disk; this is
equivalent to the 'sync' mount option applied to a subset
of the files.
t A file with the 't' attribute will not have a partial block
fragment at the end of the file merged with other files
(for those file systems which support tail-merging). This
is necessary for applications such as LILO which read the
file system directly, and which don't understand tail-
merged files. Note: As of this writing, the ext2, ext3,
and ext4 file systems do not support tail-merging.
T A directory with the 'T' attribute will be deemed to be the
top of directory hierarchies for the purposes of the Orlov
block allocator. This is a hint to the block allocator
used by ext3 and ext4 that the subdirectories under this
directory are not related, and thus should be spread apart
for allocation purposes. For example it is a very good
idea to set the 'T' attribute on the /home directory, so
that /home/john and /home/mary are placed into separate
block groups. For directories where this attribute is not
set, the Orlov block allocator will try to group
subdirectories closer together where possible.
u When a file with the 'u' attribute set is deleted, its
contents are saved. This allows the user to ask for its
undeletion. Note: please make sure to read the bugs and
limitations section at the end of this document.
x A file with the 'x' requests the use of direct access (dax)
mode, if the kernel supports DAX. This can be overridden
by the 'dax=never' mount option. For more information see
the kernel documentation for dax:
<https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/filesystems/dax.html>.
If the attribute is set on an existing directory, it will
be inherited by all files and subdirectories that are
subsequently created in the directory. If an existing
directory has contained some files and subdirectories,
modifying the attribute on the parent directory doesn't
change the attributes on these files and subdirectories.
V A file with the 'V' attribute set has fs-verity enabled.
It cannot be written to, and the file system will
automatically verify all data read from it against a
cryptographic hash that covers the entire file's contents,
e.g. via a Merkle tree. This makes it possible to
efficiently authenticate the file. This attribute may not
be set or cleared using chattr(1), although it can be
displayed by lsattr(1).
chattr was written by Remy Card <[email protected]>. It is
currently being maintained by Theodore Ts'o <[email protected]>.
The 'c', 's', and 'u' attributes are not honored by the ext2,
ext3, and ext4 file systems as implemented in the current mainline
Linux kernels. Setting 'a' and 'i' attributes will not affect the
ability to write to already existing file descriptors.
The 'j' option is only useful for ext3 and ext4 file systems.
The 'D' option is only useful on Linux kernel 2.5.19 and later.
chattr is part of the e2fsprogs package and is available from
http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net.
lsattr(1), btrfs(5), ext4(5), mkfs.f2fs(8), xfs(5).
This page is part of the e2fsprogs (utilities for ext2/3/4
filesystems) project. Information about the project can be found
at ⟨http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/⟩. It is not known how to
report bugs for this man page; if you know, please send a mail to
[email protected]. This page was obtained from the project's
upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git⟩ on
2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
that was found in the repository was 2025-07-31.) 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]
E2fsprogs version 1.47.3 July 2025 CHATTR(1)
Pages that refer to this page: chattr(1), lsattr(1), rm(1), systemd-dissect(1), fallocate(2), FS_IOC_SETFLAGS(2const), mount(2), statx(2), utime(2), utimensat(2), ext4(5), sysupdate.d(5), tmpfiles.d(5), xfs(5), btrfs-property(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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