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NAME

       fuse - Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) device

SYNOPSIS

       #include <linux/fuse.h>

DESCRIPTION

       This  device  is the primary interface between the FUSE filesystem driver and a user-space
       process wishing to provide the filesystem (referred to in the rest of this manual page  as
       the   filesystem   daemon).   This  manual  page  is  intended  for  those  interested  in
       understanding the kernel interface itself.  Those implementing a FUSE filesystem may  wish
       to  make  use  of  a  user-space library such as libfuse that abstracts away the low-level
       interface.

       At its core, FUSE is a simple client-server protocol, in which the  Linux  kernel  is  the
       client  and  the daemon is the server.  After obtaining a file descriptor for this device,
       the daemon may read(2) requests from that file descriptor and is expected to write(2) back
       its  replies.   It is important to note that a file descriptor is associated with a unique
       FUSE filesystem.  In particular, opening a second copy of  this  device,  will  not  allow
       access to resources created through the first file descriptor (and vice versa).

   The basic protocol
       Every  message  that is read by the daemon begins with a header described by the following
       structure:

           struct fuse_in_header {
               uint32_t len;       /* Total length of the data,
                                      including this header */
               uint32_t opcode;    /* The kind of operation (see below) */
               uint64_t unique;    /* A unique identifier for this request */
               uint64_t nodeid;    /* ID of the filesystem object
                                      being operated on */
               uint32_t uid;       /* UID of the requesting process */
               uint32_t gid;       /* GID of the requesting process */
               uint32_t pid;       /* PID of the requesting process */
               uint32_t padding;
           };

       The header is followed by a variable-length data portion (which may be empty) specific  to
       the requested operation (the requested operation is indicated by opcode).

       The  daemon  should  then  process  the request and if applicable send a reply (almost all
       operations require a reply; if they do not, this is documented  below),  by  performing  a
       write(2) to the file descriptor.  All replies must start with the following header:

           struct fuse_out_header {
               uint32_t len;       /* Total length of data written to
                                      the file descriptor */
               int32_t  error;     /* Any error that occurred (0 if none) */
               uint64_t unique;    /* The value from the
                                      corresponding request */
           };

       This  header  is also followed by (potentially empty) variable-sized data depending on the
       executed request.  However, if the reply is an error reply (i.e., error is set),  then  no
       further payload data should be sent, independent of the request.

   Exchanged messages
       This  section should contain documentation for each of the messages in the protocol.  This
       manual page is currently incomplete,  so  not  all  messages  are  documented.   For  each
       message,  first  the  struct sent by the kernel is given, followed by a description of the
       semantics of the message.

       FUSE_INIT

                  struct fuse_init_in {
                      uint32_t major;
                      uint32_t minor;
                      uint32_t max_readahead; /* Since protocol v7.6 */
                      uint32_t flags;         /* Since protocol v7.6 */
                  };

              This is the first request sent by  the  kernel  to  the  daemon.   It  is  used  to
              negotiate  the  protocol  version  and  other filesystem parameters.  Note that the
              protocol version may affect the layout of any structure in the protocol  (including
              this  structure).   The  daemon must thus remember the negotiated version and flags
              for each session.  As of the writing of this man page, the highest supported kernel
              protocol version is 7.26.

              Users  should  be aware that the descriptions in this manual page may be incomplete
              or incorrect for older or more recent protocol versions.

              The reply for this request has the following format:

                  struct fuse_init_out {
                      uint32_t major;
                      uint32_t minor;
                      uint32_t max_readahead;   /* Since v7.6 */
                      uint32_t flags;           /* Since v7.6; some flags bits
                                                   were introduced later */
                      uint16_t max_background;  /* Since v7.13 */
                      uint16_t congestion_threshold;  /* Since v7.13 */
                      uint32_t max_write;       /* Since v7.5 */
                      uint32_t time_gran;       /* Since v7.6 */
                      uint32_t unused[9];
                  };

              If the major version supported by the kernel is larger than that supported  by  the
              daemon,  the  reply  shall  consist  of  only  uint32_t  major (following the usual
              header), indicating the largest major version supported by the daemon.  The  kernel
              will  then  issue  a new FUSE_INIT request conforming to the older version.  In the
              reverse case, the daemon should quietly fall back to the kernel's major version.

              The negotiated minor version is considered to be the minimum of the minor  versions
              provided  by  the  daemon  and  the kernel and both parties should use the protocol
              corresponding to said minor version.

       FUSE_GETATTR

                  struct fuse_getattr_in {
                      uint32_t getattr_flags;
                      uint32_t dummy;
                      uint64_t fh;      /* Set only if
                                           (getattr_flags & FUSE_GETATTR_FH)
                  };

              The requested operation is to compute the attributes to be returned by stat(2)  and
              similar  operations  for  the  given  file system object.  The object for which the
              attributes should be computed is indicated either  by  header->nodeid  or,  if  the
              FUSE_GETATTR_FH  flag  is set, by the file handle fh.  The latter case of operation
              is analogous to fstat(2).

              For performance reasons, these attributes  may  be  cached  in  the  kernel  for  a
              specified  duration  of  time.   While the cache timeout has not been exceeded, the
              attributes will be served from the cache and will not cause additional FUSE_GETATTR
              requests.

              The  computed attributes and the requested cache timeout should then be returned in
              the following structure:

                  struct fuse_attr_out {
                      /* Attribute cache duration (seconds + nanoseconds) */
                      uint64_t attr_valid;
                      uint32_t attr_valid_nsec;
                      uint32_t dummy;
                      struct fuse_attr {
                          uint64_t ino;
                          uint64_t size;
                          uint64_t blocks;
                          uint64_t atime;
                          uint64_t mtime;
                          uint64_t ctime;
                          uint32_t atimensec;
                          uint32_t mtimensec;
                          uint32_t ctimensec;
                          uint32_t mode;
                          uint32_t nlink;
                          uint32_t uid;
                          uint32_t gid;
                          uint32_t rdev;
                          uint32_t blksize;
                          uint32_t padding;
                      } attr;
                  };

       FUSE_ACCESS

                  struct fuse_access_in {
                      uint32_t mask;
                      uint32_t padding;
                  };

              If the default_permissions mount options is not used, this request may be used  for
              permissions  checking.   No  reply data is expected, but errors may be indicated as
              usual by setting the error field in the reply header (in particular, access  denied
              errors may be indicated by returning -EACCES).

       FUSE_OPEN and FUSE_OPENDIR
                  struct fuse_open_in {
                      uint32_t flags;     /* The flags that were passed
                                             to the open(2) */
                      uint32_t unused;
                  };

              The requested operation is to open the node indicated by header->nodeid.  The exact
              semantics of what this means will  depend  on  the  filesystem  being  implemented.
              However,  at the very least the filesystem should validate that the requested flags
              are valid for the indicated resource and then  send  a  reply  with  the  following
              format:

                  struct fuse_open_out {
                      uint64_t fh;
                      uint32_t open_flags;
                      uint32_t padding;
                  };

              The  fh  field  is  an  opaque identifier that the kernel will use to refer to this
              resource The open_flags field is a bit  mask  of  any  number  of  the  flags  that
              indicate properties of this file handle to the kernel:

              FOPEN_DIRECT_IO   Bypass page cache for this open file.

              FOPEN_KEEP_CACHE  Don't invalidate the data cache on open.

              FOPEN_NONSEEKABLE The file is not seekable.

       FUSE_READ and FUSE_READDIR

                  struct fuse_read_in {
                      uint64_t fh;
                      uint64_t offset;
                      uint32_t size;
                      uint32_t read_flags;
                      uint64_t lock_owner;
                      uint32_t flags;
                      uint32_t padding;
                  };

              The requested action is to read up to size bytes of the file or directory, starting
              at offset.  The bytes should be returned directly following the usual reply header.

       FUSE_INTERRUPT
                  struct fuse_interrupt_in {
                      uint64_t unique;
                  };

              The requested action is to cancel the pending operation indicated by unique.   This
              request  requires no response.  However, receipt of this message does not by itself
              cancel the indicated operation.  The kernel will  still  expect  a  reply  to  said
              operation  (e.g.,  an  EINTR  error  or  a short read).  At most one FUSE_INTERRUPT
              request will be issued for a given operation.  After issuing  said  operation,  the
              kernel will wait uninterruptibly for completion of the indicated request.

       FUSE_LOOKUP
              Directly  following  the  header  is  a  filename  to be looked up in the directory
              indicated by header->nodeid.  The expected reply is of the form:

                  struct fuse_entry_out {
                      uint64_t nodeid;            /* Inode ID */
                      uint64_t generation;        /* Inode generation */
                      uint64_t entry_valid;
                      uint64_t attr_valid;
                      uint32_t entry_valid_nsec;
                      uint32_t attr_valid_nsec;
                      struct fuse_attr attr;
                  };

              The combination of nodeid and  generation  must  be  unique  for  the  filesystem's
              lifetime.

              The interpretation of timeouts and attr is as for FUSE_GETATTR.

       FUSE_FLUSH
                  struct fuse_flush_in {
                      uint64_t fh;
                      uint32_t unused;
                      uint32_t padding;
                      uint64_t lock_owner;
                  };

              The  requested action is to flush any pending changes to the indicated file handle.
              No reply data is expected.  However, an empty  reply  message  still  needs  to  be
              issued once the flush operation is complete.

       FUSE_RELEASE and FUSE_RELEASEDIR
                  struct fuse_release_in {
                      uint64_t fh;
                      uint32_t flags;
                      uint32_t release_flags;
                      uint64_t lock_owner;
                  };

              These  are the converse of FUSE_OPEN and FUSE_OPENDIR respectively.  The daemon may
              now free any resources associated with the file handle fh as  the  kernel  will  no
              longer  refer  to  it.   There is no reply data associated with this request, but a
              reply still needs to be issued once the request has been completely processed.

       FUSE_STATFS
              This operation implements statfs(2) for this filesystem.  There is  no  input  data
              associated with this request.  The expected reply data has the following structure:

                  struct fuse_kstatfs {
                      uint64_t blocks;
                      uint64_t bfree;
                      uint64_t bavail;
                      uint64_t files;
                      uint64_t ffree;
                      uint32_t bsize;
                      uint32_t namelen;
                      uint32_t frsize;
                      uint32_t padding;
                      uint32_t spare[6];
                  };

                  struct fuse_statfs_out {
                      struct fuse_kstatfs st;
                  };

              For the interpretation of these fields, see statfs(2).

ERRORS

       E2BIG  Returned  from  read(2)  operations  when the kernel's request is too large for the
              provided buffer and the request was FUSE_SETXATTR.

       EINVAL Returned from write(2) if validation of the reply  failed.   Not  all  mistakes  in
              replies  will be caught by this validation.  However, basic mistakes, such as short
              replies or an incorrect unique value, are detected.

       EIO    Returned from read(2) operations when the kernel's request is  too  large  for  the
              provided buffer.

              Note:  There  are various ways in which incorrect use of these interfaces can cause
              operations on the provided filesystem's files and directories  to  fail  with  EIO.
              Among the possible incorrect uses are:

              *  changing  mode  &  S_IFMT  for an inode that has previously been reported to the
                 kernel; or

              *  giving replies to the kernel that are shorter than what the kernel expected.

       ENODEV Returned from read(2) and write(2) if the FUSE filesystem was unmounted.

       EPERM  Returned from operations on a /dev/fuse file descriptor that has not been mounted.

CONFORMING TO

       The FUSE filesystem is Linux-specific.

NOTES

       The following messages are not yet documented in this manual page:

           FUSE_BATCH_FORGET
           FUSE_BMAP
           FUSE_CREATE
           FUSE_DESTROY
           FUSE_FALLOCATE
           FUSE_FORGET
           FUSE_FSYNC
           FUSE_FSYNCDIR
           FUSE_GETLK
           FUSE_GETXATTR
           FUSE_IOCTL
           FUSE_LINK
           FUSE_LISTXATTR
           FUSE_LSEEK
           FUSE_MKDIR
           FUSE_MKNOD
           FUSE_NOTIFY_REPLY
           FUSE_POLL
           FUSE_READDIRPLUS
           FUSE_READLINK
           FUSE_REMOVEXATTR
           FUSE_RENAME
           FUSE_RENAME2
           FUSE_RMDIR
           FUSE_SETATTR
           FUSE_SETLK
           FUSE_SETLKW
           FUSE_SYMLINK
           FUSE_UNLINK
           FUSE_WRITE

SEE ALSO

       fusermount(1), mount.fuse(8)

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux man-pages project.  A  description  of  the
       project,  information  about  reporting  bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
       found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.