xfsctl(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | C SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

XFSCTL(3)                Library Functions Manual               XFSCTL(3)

NAME         top

       xfsctl - control XFS filesystems and individual files

C SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <xfs/xfs.h>

       int xfsctl(const char *path, int fd, int cmd, void *ptr);

       int platform_test_xfs_fd(int fd);
       int platform_test_xfs_path(const char *path);

DESCRIPTION         top

       Some functionality specific to the XFS filesystem is accessible to
       applications through platform-specific system call interfaces.
       These operations can be divided into two sections - operations
       that operate on individual files, and operations that operate on
       the filesystem itself. Care should be taken when issuing xfsctl()
       calls to ensure the target path and file descriptor (both must be
       supplied) do indeed represent a file from an XFS filesystem.  The
       statfs(2) and fstatfs(2) system calls can be used to determine
       whether or not an arbitrary path or file descriptor belong to an
       XFS filesystem.  These are not portable however, so the routines
       platform_test_xfs_fd() and platform_test_xfs_path() provide a
       platform-independent mechanism.

   File Operations
       In order to effect an operation on an individual file, the
       pathname and descriptor arguments passed to xfsctl identifies the
       file being operated on.  The final argument described below refers
       to the final argument of xfsctl.  All of the data structures and
       macros mentioned below are defined in the <xfs/xfs_fs.h> header
       file.

       XFS_IOC_ALLOCSP
       XFS_IOC_ALLOCSP64
       XFS_IOC_FREESP
       XFS_IOC_FREESP64
              Alter storage space associated with a section of the
              ordinary file specified.  The section is specified by a
              variable of type xfs_flock64_t, pointed to by the final
              argument.  The data type xfs_flock64_t contains the
              following members: l_whence is 0, 1, or 2 to indicate that
              the relative offset l_start will be measured from the start
              of the file, the current position, or the end of the file,
              respectively (i.e., l_start is the offset from the position
              specified in l_whence).  If the offset specified is before
              the current end of file, any data previously written into
              this section is no longer accessible.  If the offset
              specified is beyond the current end of file, the file is
              grown and filled with zeroes.  The l_len field is currently
              ignored, and should be set to zero.

              XFS_IOC_ALLOCSP, XFS_IOC_ALLOCSP64, XFS_IOC_FREESP and
              XFS_IOC_FREESP64 operations are all identical.

              These ioctls are no longer supported as of Linux 5.17.

       XFS_IOC_FSSETDM
              Set the di_dmevmask and di_dmstate fields in an XFS on-disk
              inode.  The only legitimate values for these fields are
              those previously returned in the bs_dmevmask and bs_dmstate
              fields of the bulkstat structure.  The data referred to by
              the final argument is a struct fsdmidata.  This structure's
              members are fsd_dmevmask and fsd_dmstate.  The di_dmevmask
              field is set to the value in fsd_dmevmask.  The di_dmstate
              field is set to the value in fsd_dmstate.  This command is
              restricted to root or to processes with device management
              capabilities.  Its sole purpose is to allow backup and
              restore programs to restore the aforementioned critical on-
              disk inode fields.  This ioctl is not supported as of Linux
              5.5.

       XFS_IOC_DIOINFO
              Get information required to perform direct I/O on the
              specified file descriptor.  Direct I/O is performed
              directly to and from a user's data buffer.  Since the
              kernel's buffer cache is no longer between the two, the
              user's data buffer must conform to the same type of
              constraints as required for accessing a raw disk partition.
              The final argument points to a variable of type struct
              dioattr, which contains the following members: d_mem is the
              memory alignment requirement of the user's data buffer.
              d_miniosz specifies block size, minimum I/O request size,
              and I/O alignment.  The size of all I/O requests must be a
              multiple of this amount and the value of the seek pointer
              at the time of the I/O request must also be an integer
              multiple of this amount.  d_maxiosz is the maximum I/O
              request size which can be performed on the file descriptor.
              If an I/O request does not meet these constraints, the
              read(2) or write(2) will fail with EINVAL.  All I/O
              requests are kept consistent with any data brought into the
              cache with an access through a non-direct I/O file
              descriptor.

       XFS_IOC_FSGETXATTR
       XFS_IOC_FSGETXATTRA
       XFS_IOC_FSSETXATTR
              See ioctl_xfs_fsgetxattr(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_GETBMAP
       XFS_IOC_GETBMAPA
       XFS_IOC_GETBMAPX
              See ioctl_getbmap(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_RESVSP
       XFS_IOC_RESVSP64
              This command is used to allocate space to a file.  A range
              of bytes is specified using a pointer to a variable of type
              xfs_flock64_t in the final argument.  The blocks are
              allocated, but not zeroed, and the file size does not
              change.  If the XFS filesystem is configured to flag
              unwritten file extents, performance will be negatively
              affected when writing to preallocated space, since extra
              filesystem transactions are required to convert extent
              flags on the range of the file written.  If xfs_info(8)
              reports unwritten=1, then the filesystem was made to flag
              unwritten extents.

       XFS_IOC_UNRESVSP
       XFS_IOC_UNRESVSP64
              This command is used to free space from a file.  A range of
              bytes is specified using a pointer to a variable of type
              xfs_flock64_t in the final argument.  Partial filesystem
              blocks are zeroed, and whole filesystem blocks are removed
              from the file.  The file size does not change.

       XFS_IOC_ZERO_RANGE
              This command is used to convert a range of a file to zeros
              without issuing data IO.  A range of bytes is specified
              using a pointer to a variable of type xfs_flock64_t in the
              final argument.  Blocks are preallocated for regions that
              span holes in the file, and the entire range is converted
              to unwritten extents.  This operation is a fast method of
              overwriting any from the range specified with zeros without
              removing any blocks or having to write zeros to disk.  Any
              subsequent read in the given range will return zeros until
              new data is written.  This functionality requires
              filesystems to support unwritten extents.  If xfs_info(8)
              reports unwritten=1, then the filesystem was made to flag
              unwritten extents.

       XFS_IOC_PATH_TO_HANDLE
       XFS_IOC_PATH_TO_FSHANDLE
       XFS_IOC_FD_TO_HANDLE
       XFS_IOC_OPEN_BY_HANDLE
       XFS_IOC_READLINK_BY_HANDLE
       XFS_IOC_ATTR_LIST_BY_HANDLE
       XFS_IOC_ATTR_MULTI_BY_HANDLE
       XFS_IOC_FSSETDM_BY_HANDLE
              These are all interfaces that are used to implement various
              libhandle functions (see open_by_handle(3)).  They are all
              subject to change and should not be called directly by
              applications.  XFS_IOC_FSSETDM_BY_HANDLE is not supported
              as of Linux 5.5.

   Filesystem Operations
       In order to effect one of the following operations, the pathname
       and descriptor arguments passed to xfsctl() can be any open file
       in the XFS filesystem in question.

       XFS_IOC_FSINUMBERS
              See ioctl_xfs_fsinumbers(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_FSGEOMETRY
              See ioctl_xfs_fsgeometry(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_AG_GEOMETRY
              See ioctl_xfs_ag_geometry(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_FSBULKSTAT or XFS_IOC_FSBULKSTAT_SINGLE
              See ioctl_xfs_fsbulkstat(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_SCRUB_METADATA
              See ioctl_xfs_scrub_metadata(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_FSCOUNTS
              See ioctl_xfs_fscounts(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_GET_RESBLKS
       XFS_IOC_SET_RESBLKS
              See ioctl_xfs_getresblks(2) for more information.  Save
              yourself a lot of frustration and avoid these ioctls.

       XFS_IOC_GOINGDOWN
              See ioctl_xfs_goingdown(2) for more information.

       XFS_IOC_THAW
       XFS_IOC_FREEZE
       XFS_IOC_FSGROWFSDATA
       XFS_IOC_FSGROWFSLOG
       XFS_IOC_FSGROWFSRT
              These interfaces are used to implement various filesystem
              internal operations on XFS filesystems.  The remainder of
              these operations will not be described further as they are
              not of general use to applications.

SEE ALSO         top

       ioctl_xfs_fsgetxattr(2), ioctl_xfs_fsgeometry(2),
       ioctl_xfs_fsbulkstat(2), ioctl_xfs_scrub_metadata(2),
       ioctl_xfs_fsinumbers(2), ioctl_xfs_fscounts(2),
       ioctl_xfs_getresblks(2), ioctl_xfs_getbmap(2),
       ioctl_xfs_goingdown(2), fstatfs(2), statfs(2), xfs(5),
       xfs_info(8).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the xfsprogs (utilities for XFS filesystems)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://xfs.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual page,
       send it to linux-xfs@vger.kernel.org.  This page was obtained from
       the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/xfs/xfsprogs-dev.git⟩ on
       2025-02-02.  (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
       that was found in the repository was 2024-12-02.)  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 man-pages@man7.org

                                                                XFSCTL(3)

Pages that refer to this page: open(2)handle(3)projects(5)projid(5)xfs(5)xfs_io(8)