Provided by: btrfs-progs_6.6.3-1.2_amd64 
NAME
btrfs-filesystem - command group that primarily does work on the whole filesystems
SYNOPSIS
btrfs filesystem <subcommand> <args>
DESCRIPTION
btrfs filesystem is used to perform several whole filesystem level tasks, including all
the regular filesystem operations like resizing, space stats, label setting/getting, and
defragmentation. There are other whole filesystem tasks like scrub or balance that are
grouped in separate commands.
SUBCOMMAND
df [options] <path>
Show a terse summary information about allocation of block group types of a given
mount point. The original purpose of this command was a debugging helper. The
output needs to be further interpreted and is not suitable for quick overview.
An example with description:
• device size: 1.9TiB, one device, no RAID
• filesystem size: 1.9TiB
• created with: mkfs.btrfs -d single -m single
$ btrfs filesystem df /path
Data, single: total=1.15TiB, used=1.13TiB
System, single: total=32.00MiB, used=144.00KiB
Metadata, single: total=12.00GiB, used=6.45GiB
GlobalReserve, single: total=512.00MiB, used=0.00B
• Data, System and Metadata are separate block group types. GlobalReserve is an
artificial and internal emergency space, see below.
• single -- the allocation profile, defined at mkfs time
• total -- sum of space reserved for all allocation profiles of the given type,
i.e. all Data/single. Note that it's not total size of filesystem.
• used -- sum of used space of the above, i.e. file extents, metadata blocks
GlobalReserve is an artificial and internal emergency space. It is used e.g. when
the filesystem is full. Its total size is dynamic based on the filesystem size,
usually not larger than 512MiB, used may fluctuate.
The GlobalReserve is a portion of Metadata. In case the filesystem metadata is
exhausted, GlobalReserve/total + Metadata/used = Metadata/total. Otherwise there
appears to be some unused space of Metadata.
Options
-b|--raw
raw numbers in bytes, without the B suffix
-h|--human-readable
print human friendly numbers, base 1024, this is the default
-H print human friendly numbers, base 1000
--iec select the 1024 base for the following options, according to the IEC
standard
--si select the 1000 base for the following options, according to the SI standard
-k|--kbytes
show sizes in KiB, or kB with --si
-m|--mbytes
show sizes in MiB, or MB with --si
-g|--gbytes
show sizes in GiB, or GB with --si
-t|--tbytes
show sizes in TiB, or TB with --si
If conflicting options are passed, the last one takes precedence.
defragment [options] <file>|<dir> [<file>|<dir>...]
Defragment file data on a mounted filesystem. Requires kernel 2.6.33 and newer.
If -r is passed, files in dir will be defragmented recursively (not descending to
subvolumes, mount points and directory symlinks). The start position and the
number of bytes to defragment can be specified by start and length using -s and -l
options below. Extents bigger than value given by -t will be skipped, otherwise
this value is used as a target extent size, but is only advisory and may not be
reached if the free space is too fragmented. Use 0 to take the kernel default,
which is 256KiB but may change in the future. You can also turn on compression in
defragment operations.
WARNING:
Defragmenting with Linux kernel versions < 3.9 or ≥ 3.14-rc2 as well as with
Linux stable kernel versions ≥ 3.10.31, ≥ 3.12.12 or ≥ 3.13.4 will break up the
reflinks of COW data (for example files copied with cp --reflink, snapshots or
de-duplicated data). This may cause considerable increase of space usage
depending on the broken up reflinks.
NOTE:
Directory arguments without -r do not defragment files recursively but will
defragment certain internal trees (extent tree and the subvolume tree). This has
been confusing and could be removed in the future.
For start, len, size it is possible to append units designator: K, M, G, T, P, or
E, which represent KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, PiB, or EiB, respectively (case does not
matter).
Options
-c[<algo>]
compress file contents while defragmenting. Optional argument selects the
compression algorithm, zlib (default), lzo or zstd. Currently it's not
possible to select no compression. See also section EXAMPLES.
-r defragment files recursively in given directories, does not descend to
subvolumes or mount points
-f flush data for each file before going to the next file.
This will limit the amount of dirty data to current file, otherwise the
amount accumulates from several files and will increase system load. This
can also lead to ENOSPC if there's too much dirty data to write and it's not
possible to make the reservations for the new data (i.e. how the COW design
works).
-s <start>[kKmMgGtTpPeE]
defragmentation will start from the given offset, default is beginning of a
file
-l <len>[kKmMgGtTpPeE]
defragment only up to len bytes, default is the file size
-t <size>[kKmMgGtTpPeE]
target extent size, do not touch extents bigger than size, default: 32MiB
The value is only advisory and the final size of the extents may differ,
depending on the state of the free space and fragmentation or other internal
logic. Reasonable values are from tens to hundreds of megabytes.
--step SIZE
Perform defragmention in the range in SIZE steps and flush (-f) after each
one. The range is default (the whole file) or given by -s and -l, split
into the steps or done in one go if the step is larger. Minimum range size
is 256KiB.
-v (deprecated) alias for global -v option
du [options] <path> [<path>..]
Calculate disk usage of the target files using FIEMAP. For individual files, it
will report a count of total bytes, and exclusive (not shared) bytes. We also
calculate a 'set shared' value which is described below.
Each argument to btrfs filesystem du will have a set shared value calculated for
it. We define each set as those files found by a recursive search of an argument
(recursion descends to subvolumes but not mount points). The set shared value then
is a sum of all shared space referenced by the set.
set shared takes into account overlapping shared extents, hence it isn't as simple
as adding up shared extents.
Options
-s|--summarize
display only a total for each argument
--raw raw numbers in bytes, without the B suffix.
--human-readable
print human friendly numbers, base 1024, this is the default
--iec select the 1024 base for the following options, according to the IEC
standard.
--si select the 1000 base for the following options, according to the SI
standard.
--kbytes
show sizes in KiB, or kB with --si.
--mbytes
show sizes in MiB, or MB with --si.
--gbytes
show sizes in GiB, or GB with --si.
--tbytes
show sizes in TiB, or TB with --si.
label [<device>|<mountpoint>] [<newlabel>]
Show or update the label of a filesystem. This works on a mounted filesystem or a
filesystem image.
The newlabel argument is optional. Current label is printed if the argument is
omitted.
NOTE:
The maximum allowable length shall be less than 256 chars and must not contain a
newline. The trailing newline is stripped automatically.
mkswapfile [-s size] file
Create a new file that's suitable and formatted as a swapfile. Default size is
2GiB, fixed page size 4KiB, minimum size is 40KiB.
A swapfile must be created in a specific way: NOCOW and preallocated. Subvolume
containing a swapfile cannot be snapshotted and blocks of an activated swapfile
cannot be balanced.
Swapfile creation can be achieved by standalone commands too. Activation needs to
be done by command swapon(8). See also command btrfs inspect-internal map-swapfile
and the Swapfile feature description.
NOTE:
The command is a simplified version of 'mkswap', if you want to set label, page
size, or other parameters please use 'mkswap' proper.
Options
-s|--size SIZE
Create swapfile of a given size SIZE (accepting k/m/g/e/p suffix).
-U|--uuid UUID
specify UUID to use, or a special value: clear (all zeros), random, time
(time-based random)
resize [options] [<devid>:][+/-]<size>[kKmMgGtTpPeE]|[<devid>:]max <path>
Resize a mounted filesystem identified by path. A particular device can be resized
by specifying a devid.
WARNING:
If path is a file containing a BTRFS image then resize does not work as expected
and does not resize the image. This would resize the underlying filesystem
instead.
The devid can be found in the output of btrfs filesystem show and defaults to 1 if
not specified. The size parameter specifies the new size of the filesystem. If
the prefix + or - is present the size is increased or decreased by the quantity
size. If no units are specified, bytes are assumed for size. Optionally, the size
parameter may be suffixed by one of the following unit designators: K, M, G, T, P,
or E, which represent KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, PiB, or EiB, respectively (case does not
matter).
If max is passed, the filesystem will occupy all available space on the device
respecting devid (remember, devid 1 by default).
The resize command does not manipulate the size of underlying partition. If you
wish to enlarge/reduce a filesystem, you must make sure you can expand the
partition before enlarging the filesystem and shrink the partition after reducing
the size of the filesystem. This can done using fdisk(8) or parted(8) to delete
the existing partition and recreate it with the new desired size. When recreating
the partition make sure to use the same starting partition offset as before.
Growing is usually instant as it only updates the size. However, shrinking could
take a long time if there are data in the device area that's beyond the new end.
Relocation of the data takes time.
See also section EXAMPLES.
Options
--enqueue
wait if there's another exclusive operation running, otherwise continue
show [options] [<path>|<uuid>|<device>|<label>]
Show the btrfs filesystem with some additional info about devices and space
allocation.
If no option none of path/uuid/device/label is passed, information about all the
BTRFS filesystems is shown, both mounted and unmounted.
Options
-m|--mounted
probe kernel for mounted BTRFS filesystems
-d|--all-devices
scan all devices under /dev, otherwise the devices list is extracted from
the /proc/partitions file. This is a fallback option if there's no device
node manager (like udev) available in the system.
--raw raw numbers in bytes, without the B suffix
--human-readable
print human friendly numbers, base 1024, this is the default
--iec select the 1024 base for the following options, according to the IEC
standard
--si select the 1000 base for the following options, according to the SI standard
--kbytes
show sizes in KiB, or kB with --si
--mbytes
show sizes in MiB, or MB with --si
--gbytes
show sizes in GiB, or GB with --si
--tbytes
show sizes in TiB, or TB with --si
sync <path>
Force a sync of the filesystem at path, similar to the sync(1) command. In
addition, it starts cleaning of deleted subvolumes. To wait for the subvolume
deletion to complete use the btrfs subvolume sync command.
usage [options] <path> [<path>...]
Show detailed information about internal filesystem usage. This is supposed to
replace the btrfs filesystem df command in the long run.
The level of detail can differ if the command is run under a regular or the root
user (due to use of restricted ioctl). For both there's a summary section with
information about space usage:
$ btrfs filesystem usage /path
WARNING: cannot read detailed chunk info, RAID5/6 numbers will be incorrect, run as root
Overall:
Device size: 1.82TiB
Device allocated: 1.17TiB
Device unallocated: 669.99GiB
Device missing: 0.00B
Device slack: 1.00GiB
Used: 1.14TiB
Free (estimated): 692.57GiB (min: 692.57GiB)
Free (statfs, df) 692.57GiB
Data ratio: 1.00
Metadata ratio: 1.00
Global reserve: 512.00MiB (used: 0.00B)
Multiple profiles: no
• Device size -- sum of raw device capacity available to the filesystem, note that
this may not be the same as the total device size (the difference is accounted as
slack)
• Device allocated -- sum of total space allocated for data/metadata/system
profiles, this also accounts space reserved but not yet used for extents
• Device unallocated -- the remaining unallocated space for future allocations
(difference of the above two numbers)
• Device missing -- sum of capacity of all missing devices
• Device slack -- sum of slack space on all devices (difference between entire
device size and the space occupied by filesystem)
• Used -- sum of the used space of data/metadata/system profiles, not including the
reserved space
• Free (estimated) -- approximate size of the remaining free space usable for data,
including currently allocated space and estimating the usage of the unallocated
space based on the block group profiles, the min is the lower bound of the
estimate in case multiple profiles are present
• Free (statfs, df) -- the amount of space available for data as reported by the
statfs/statvfs syscall, also returned as Avail in the output of df. The value is
calculated in a different way and may not match the estimate in some cases (e.g.
multiple profiles).
• Data ratio -- ratio of total space for data including redundancy or parity to the
effectively usable data space, e.g. single is 1.0, RAID1 is 2.0 and for RAID5/6
it depends on the number of devices
• Metadata ratio -- ditto, for metadata
• Global reserve -- portion of metadata currently used for global block reserve,
used for emergency purposes (like deletion on a full filesystem)
• Multiple profiles -- what block group types (data, metadata) have more than one
profile (single, raid1, ...), see btrfs(5) section FILESYSTEMS WITH MULTIPLE
PROFILES.
And on a zoned filesystem there are two more lines in the Device section:
Device zone unusable: 5.13GiB
Device zone size: 256.00MiB
• Device zone unusable -- sum of of space that's been used in the past but now is
not due to COW and not referenced anymore, the chunks have to be reclaimed and
zones reset to make it usable again
• Device zone size -- the reported zone size of the host-managed device, same for
all devices
The root user will also see stats broken down by block group types:
Data,single: Size:1.15TiB, Used:1.13TiB (98.26%)
/dev/sdb 1.15TiB
Metadata,single: Size:12.00GiB, Used:6.45GiB (53.75%)
/dev/sdb 12.00GiB
System,single: Size:32.00MiB, Used:144.00KiB (0.44%)
/dev/sdb 32.00MiB
Unallocated:
/dev/sdb 669.99GiB
Data is block group type, single is block group profile, Size is total size
occupied by this type, Used is the actually used space, the percent is ratio of
Used/Size. The Unallocated is remaining space.
Options
-b|--raw
raw numbers in bytes, without the B suffix
-h|--human-readable
print human friendly numbers, base 1024, this is the default
-H print human friendly numbers, base 1000
--iec select the 1024 base for the following options, according to the IEC
standard
--si select the 1000 base for the following options, according to the SI standard
-k|--kbytes
show sizes in KiB, or kB with --si
-m|--mbytes
show sizes in MiB, or MB with --si
-g|--gbytes
show sizes in GiB, or GB with --si
-t|--tbytes
show sizes in TiB, or TB with --si
-T show data in tabular format
If conflicting options are passed, the last one takes precedence.
EXAMPLES
$ btrfs filesystem defrag -v -r dir/
Recursively defragment files under dir/, print files as they are processed. The file
names will be printed in batches, similarly the amount of data triggered by
defragmentation will be proportional to last N printed files. The system dirty memory
throttling will slow down the defragmentation but there can still be a lot of IO load and
the system may stall for a moment.
$ btrfs filesystem defrag -v -r -f dir/
Recursively defragment files under dir/, be verbose and wait until all blocks are flushed
before processing next file. You can note slower progress of the output and lower IO load
(proportional to currently defragmented file).
$ btrfs filesystem defrag -v -r -f -clzo dir/
Recursively defragment files under dir/, be verbose, wait until all blocks are flushed and
force file compression.
$ btrfs filesystem defrag -v -r -t 64M dir/
Recursively defragment files under dir/, be verbose and try to merge extents to be about
64MiB. As stated above, the success rate depends on actual free space fragmentation and
the final result is not guaranteed to meet the target even if run repeatedly.
$ btrfs filesystem resize -1G /path
$ btrfs filesystem resize 1:-1G /path
Shrink size of the filesystem's device id 1 by 1GiB. The first syntax expects a device
with id 1 to exist, otherwise fails. The second is equivalent and more explicit. For a
single-device filesystem it's typically not necessary to specify the devid though.
$ btrfs filesystem resize max /path
$ btrfs filesystem resize 1:max /path
Let's assume that devid 1 exists and the filesystem does not occupy the whole block
device, e.g. it has been enlarged and we want to grow the filesystem. By simply using max
as size we will achieve that.
NOTE:
There are two ways to minimize the filesystem on a given device. The btrfs
inspect-internal min-dev-size command, or iteratively shrink in steps.
EXIT STATUS
btrfs filesystem returns a zero exit status if it succeeds. Non zero is returned in case
of failure.
AVAILABILITY
btrfs is part of btrfs-progs. Please refer to the documentation at
https://btrfs.readthedocs.io.
SEE ALSO
btrfs-subvolume(8), mkfs.btrfs(8)