Ubuntu Manpages

losetup

set up and control loop devices

Get info:


losetup loopdev

losetup -l [-a]

losetup -j file [-o offset]


Detach a loop device:


losetup -d loopdev...


Detach all associated loop devices:


losetup -D


Print the name of the first unused loop device:


losetup -f


Set up a loop device:


losetup [-o offset] [--sizelimit size]
[-Pr] [--show] -f|loopdev file


Resize a loop device:


losetup -c loopdev

losetup is used to associate loop devices with regular files or block devices, to detach loop devices, and to query the status of a loop device. If only the loopdev argument is given, the status of the corresponding loop device is shown. If no option is given, all loop devices are shown.

Note that the old output format (i.e. losetup -a) with comma-delimited strings is deprecated in favour of the --list output format.

The size and offset arguments may be followed by the multiplicative suffixes KiB (=1024), MiB (=1024*1024), and so on for GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g., "K" has the same meaning as "KiB") or the suffixes KB (=1000), MB (=1000*1000), and so on for GB, TB, PB, EB, ZB and YB.

Show the status of all loop devices. Note that not all information is accessible for non-root users. See also --list. The old output format (as printed without --list) is deprecated.
Force the loop driver to reread the size of the file associated with the specified loop device.
Detach the file or device associated with the specified loop device(s).
Detach all associated loop devices.
Find the first unused loop device. If a file argument is present, use the found device as loop device. Otherwise, just print its name.
Show the status of all loop devices associated with the given file.
Use JSON format for --list output.
If a loop device or the -a option is specified, print the default columns for either the specified loop device or all loop devices; the default is to print info about all devices. See also --output, --noheadings --json and --raw.
Don't print headings for --list output format.
The data start is moved offset bytes into the specified file or device.
Specify the columns that are to be printed for the --list output.
Force the kernel to scan the partition table on a newly created loop device.
Use the raw --list output format.
Set up a read-only loop device.
The data end is set to no more than size bytes after the data start.
Display the name of the assigned loop device if the -f option and a file argument are present.
Verbose mode.
Display version information and exit.
Display help text and exit.

Cryptoloop is no longer supported in favor of dm-crypt. For more details see cryptsetup (8).

losetup returns 0 on success, nonzero on failure. When losetup displays the status of a loop device, it returns 1 if the device is not configured and 2 if an error occurred which prevented determining the status of the device.

/dev/loop[0..N]
loop block devices
/dev/loop-control
loop control device

The following commands can be used as an example of using the loop device.

# dd if=/dev/zero of=~/file.img bs=1MiB count=10
# losetup --find --show ~/file.img
/dev/loop0
# mkfs -t ext2 /dev/loop0
# mount /dev/loop0 /mnt
 ...
# umount /dev/loop0
# losetup --detach /dev/loop0

enables debug output.

Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>, based on the original version from Theodore Ts'o <tytso@athena.mit.edu>

The losetup command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.