SETFATTR(1) File Utilities SETFATTR(1)
NAME
setfattr - set extended attributes of filesystem objects
SYNOPSIS
setfattr [-h] -n name [-v value] pathname...
setfattr [-h] -x name pathname...
setfattr [-h] --restore=file
DESCRIPTION
The setfattr command associates a new value with an extended attribute
name for each specified file.
OPTIONS
-n name, --name=name
Specifies the name of the extended attribute to set.
-v value, --value=value
Specifies the new value of the extended attribute. There are three
methods available for encoding the value. If the given string is
enclosed in double quotes, the inner string is treated as text. In
that case, backslashes and double quotes have special meanings and
need to be escaped by a preceding backslash. Any control characters
can be encoded as a backslash followed by three digits as its ASCII
code in octal. If the given string begins with 0x or 0X, it ex-
presses a hexadecimal number. If the given string begins with 0s or
0S, base64 encoding is expected. Also see the --encoding option of
getfattr(1).
-x name, --remove=name
Remove the named extended attribute entirely.
-h, --no-dereference
Do not follow symlinks. If pathname is a symbolic link, it is not
followed, but is instead itself the inode being modified.
--restore=file
Restores extended attributes from file. The file must be in the
format generated by the getfattr command with the --dump option.
If a dash (-) is given as the file name, setfattr reads from stan-
dard input.
--raw
Do not decode the attribute value. Can be used to set values ob-
tained with getfattr --only-values.
--version
Print the version of setfattr and exit.
--help
Print help explaining the command line options.
-- End of command line options. All remaining parameters are inter-
preted as file names, even if they start with a dash character.
EXAMPLES
Add extended attribute to user namespace:
$ setfattr -n user.foo -v bar file.txt
To add md5sum of the file as an extended attribute:
# setfattr -n trusted.md5sum -v d41d8cd98f00b204e00998ecf8427e file.txt
AUTHOR
Andreas Gruenbacher, <andreas.gruenbacher@gmail.com> and the SGI XFS
development team, <linux-xfs@oss.sgi.com>.
Please send your bug reports or comments to <https://savan-
nah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=attr> or <acl-devel@nongnu.org>.
SEE ALSO
getfattr(1), attr(5)
Dec 2001 Extended Attributes SETFATTR(1)
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