getfattr(1) — Linux manual page

GETFATTR(1)                   File Utilities                  GETFATTR(1)

NAME         top

       getfattr - get extended attributes of filesystem objects

SYNOPSIS         top

       getfattr [-hRLP] -n name [-e en] pathname...
       getfattr [-hRLP] -d [-e en] [-m pattern] pathname...

DESCRIPTION         top

       For each file, getfattr displays the file name, and the set of
       extended attribute names (and optionally values) which are
       associated with that file. Per default only attributes in the user
       namespace are displayed, see -m.

       The output format of getfattr -d is as follows:
               1:  # file: somedir/
               2:  user.name0="value0"
               3:  user.name1="value1"
               4:  user.name2="value2"
               5:  ...

       Line 1 identifies the file name for which the following lines are
       being reported.  The remaining lines (lines 2 to 4 above) show the
       name and value pairs associated with the specified file.

OPTIONS         top

       -n name, --name=name
           Dump the value of the named extended attribute.

       -d, --dump
           Dump the values of all matched extended attributes.

       -e en, --encoding=en
           Encode values after retrieving them.  Valid values of en are
           "text", "hex", and "base64".  Values encoded as text strings
           are enclosed in double quotes ("), while strings encoded as
           hexadecimal and base64 are prefixed with 0x and 0s,
           respectively.

       -h, --no-dereference
           Do not dereference symlinks. Instead of the file a symlink
           refers to, the symlink itself is examined.  Unless doing a
           logical (-L) traversal, do not traverse symlinks to
           directories.

       -m pattern, --match=pattern
           Only include attributes with names matching the regular
           expression pattern.  The default value for pattern is
           "^user\\.", which includes all the attributes in the user
           namespace. Specify "-" for including all attributes.  Refer to
           xattr(7) for a more detailed discussion of namespaces.

       --absolute-names
           Do not strip leading slash characters ('/').  The default
           behaviour is to strip leading slash characters.

       --only-values
           Dump out the raw extended attribute value(s) without encoding
           them.

       -R, --recursive
           List the attributes of all files and directories recursively.

       -L, --logical
           Logical walk, follow symbolic links to directories.  The
           default behaviour is to follow symbolic link arguments unless
           --no-dereference is given, and to skip symbolic links
           encountered in subdirectories.  Only effective in combination
           with -R.

       -P, --physical
           Physical walk, do not follow symbolic links to directories.
           This also skips symbolic link arguments.  Only effective in
           combination with -R.

       --version
           Print the version of getfattr and exit.

       --help
           Print help explaining the command line options.

       --  End of command line options.  All remaining parameters are
           interpreted as file names, even if they start with a dash
           character.

AUTHOR         top

       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]>.

SEE ALSO         top

       setfattr(1), xattr(7)

COLOPHON         top

       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                GETFATTR(1)

Pages that refer to this page: attr(1),  setfattr(1),  getxattr(2),  listxattr(2),  removexattr(2),  setxattr(2),  selinux_restorecon(3),  tmpfiles.d(5),  xattr(7),  systemd-coredump(8)

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