GETFATTR

Section: File Utilities (1)
Updated: Extended Attributes
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

getfattr - get extended attributes of filesystem objects

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

For each file, getfattr displays the file name, and the set of extended attribute names (and optionally values) which are associated with that file.

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

-n name, --name=name: Dump the value of the named extended attribute extended attribute.
-d, --dump: Dump the values of all extended attributes associated with pathname.
-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 hexidecimal 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.
-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 attr(5) 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 extended attribute value(s) only.
-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, 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