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.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
The SGI XFS Filesystem
XFS is a high performance journaling filesystem which originated
on the SGI IRIX platform. It is completely multi-threaded, can
support large files and large filesystems, extended attributes,
variable block sizes, is extent based, and makes extensive use of
Btrees (directories, extents, free space) to aid both performance
and scalability.
Refer to the documentation at
for further details. This implementation is on-disk compatible
with the IRIX version of XFS.
Mount Options
When mounting an XFS filesystem, the following options are accepted.
doing delayed allocation writeout (default size is 64KiB).
Valid values for this option are page size (typically 4KiB)
The default behaviour is for dynamic end-of-file
preallocation size, which uses a set of heuristics to
optimise the preallocation size based on the current
allocation patterns within the file and the access patterns
to the file. Specifying a fixed ``allocsize`` value turns off
the dynamic behaviour.
attr2 or noattr2
The options enable/disable an "opportunistic" improvement to
be made in the way inline extended attributes are stored
``attr2`` is selected (either when setting or removing extended
attributes) the on-disk superblock feature bit field will be
updated to reflect this format being in use.
The default behaviour is determined by the on-disk feature
bit indicating that ``attr2`` behaviour is active. If either
mount option is set, then that becomes the new default used
by the filesystem.
CRC enabled filesystems always use the ``attr2`` format, and so
will reject the ``noattr2`` mount option if it is set.
discard or nodiscard (default)
Enable/disable the issuing of commands to let the block
device reclaim space freed by the filesystem. This is
useful for SSD devices, thinly provisioned LUNs and virtual
machine images, but may have a performance impact.
Note: It is currently recommended that you use the ``fstrim``
application to ``discard`` unused blocks rather than the ``discard``
mount option because the performance impact of this option
is quite severe.
grpid/bsdgroups or nogrpid/sysvgroups (default)
These options define what group ID a newly created file
gets. When ``grpid`` is set, it takes the group ID of the
directory in which it is created; otherwise it takes the
``fsgid`` of the current process, unless the directory has the
``setgid`` bit set, in which case it takes the ``gid`` from the
parent directory, and also gets the ``setgid`` bit set if it is
a directory itself.
Make the data allocator use the filestreams allocation mode
across the entire filesystem rather than just on directories
configured to use it.
ikeep or noikeep (default)
When ``ikeep`` is specified, XFS does not delete empty inode
clusters and keeps them around on disk. When ``noikeep`` is
specified, empty inode clusters are returned to the free
space pool.
inode32 or inode64 (default)
When ``inode32`` is specified, it indicates that XFS limits
inode creation to locations which will not result in inode
numbers with more than 32 bits of significance.
When ``inode64`` is specified, it indicates that XFS is allowed
to create inodes at any location in the filesystem,
including those which will result in inode numbers occupying
more than 32 bits of significance.
``inode32`` is provided for backwards compatibility with older
systems and applications, since 64 bits inode numbers might
cause problems for some applications that cannot handle
large inode numbers. If applications are in use which do
not handle inode numbers bigger than 32 bits, the ``inode32``
option should be specified.
largeio or nolargeio (default)
If ``nolargeio`` is specified, the optimal I/O reported in
``st_blksize`` by **stat(2)** will be as small as possible to allow
user applications to avoid inefficient read/modify/write
this is the granularity of the page cache.
If ``largeio`` is specified, a filesystem that was created with a
``swidth`` specified will return the ``swidth`` value (in bytes)
in ``st_blksize``. If the filesystem does not have a ``swidth``
specified but does specify an ``allocsize`` then ``allocsize``
(in bytes) will be returned instead. Otherwise the behaviour
is the same as if ``nolargeio`` was specified.
Set the number of in-memory log buffers. Valid numbers
range from 2-8 inclusive.
The default value is 8 buffers.
systems, then it may be reduced at some cost to performance
on metadata intensive workloads. The ``logbsize`` option below
controls the size of each buffer and so is also relevant to
this case.
and 32768 (32k). Valid sizes for version 2 logs also
include 65536 (64k), 131072 (128k) and 262144 (256k). The
logbsize must be an integer multiple of the log
stripe unit configured at **mkfs(8)** time.
The default value for for version 1 logs is 32768, while the
logdev=device and rtdev=device
optional, and the log section can be separate from the data
section or contained within it.
Data allocations will not be aligned at stripe unit
boundaries. This is only relevant to filesystems created
with non-zero data alignment parameters (``sunit``, ``swidth``) by
The filesystem will be mounted without running log recovery.
If the filesystem was not cleanly unmounted, it is likely to
be inconsistent when mounted in ``norecovery`` mode.
Some files or directories may not be accessible because of this.
Filesystems mounted ``norecovery`` must be mounted read-only or
the mount will fail.
Don't check for double mounted file systems using the file
system ``uuid``. This is useful to mount LVM snapshot volumes,
and often used in combination with ``norecovery`` for mounting
read-only snapshots.
Forcibly turns off all quota accounting and enforcement
within the filesystem.
User disk quota accounting enabled, and limits (optionally)
enforced. Refer to **xfs_quota(8)** for further details.
Group disk quota accounting enabled and limits (optionally)
Project disk quota accounting enabled and limits (optionally)
sunit=value and swidth=value
Used to specify the stripe unit and width for a RAID device
block units. These options are only relevant to filesystems
that were created with non-zero data alignment parameters.
The ``sunit`` and ``swidth`` parameters specified must be compatible
with the existing filesystem alignment characteristics. In
general, that means the only valid changes to ``sunit`` are
increasing it by a power-of-2 multiple. Valid ``swidth`` values
are any integer multiple of a valid ``sunit`` value.
Typically the only time these mount options are necessary if
after an underlying RAID device has had it's geometry
reshaping it.
Data allocations will be rounded up to stripe width boundaries
when the current end of file is being extended and the file
size is larger than the stripe width size.
When specified, all filesystem namespace operations are
executed synchronously. This ensures that when the namespace
namespace is on stable storage. This is useful in HA setups
where failover must not result in clients seeing
inconsistent namespace presentation during or after a
failover event.
Deprecated Mount Options
Name Removal Schedule
Removed Mount Options
Name Removed
delaylog/nodelaylog v4.0
ihashsize v4.0
irixsgid v4.0
osyncisdsync/osyncisosync v4.0
barrier v4.19
nobarrier v4.19
The following sysctls are available for the XFS filesystem:
fs.xfs.stats_clear (Min: 0 Default: 0 Max: 1)
Setting this to "1" clears accumulated XFS statistics
fs.xfs.xfssyncd_centisecs (Min: 100 Default: 3000 Max: 720000)
The interval at which the filesystem flushes metadata
out to disk and runs internal cache cleanup routines.
fs.xfs.filestream_centisecs (Min: 1 Default: 3000 Max: 360000)
The interval at which the filesystem ages filestreams cache
references and returns timed-out AGs back to the free stream
(Units: seconds Min: 1 Default: 300 Max: 86400)
The interval at which the background scanning for inodes
with unused speculative preallocation runs. The scan
removes unused preallocation from clean inodes and releases
the unused space back to the free pool.
fs.xfs.error_level (Min: 0 Default: 3 Max: 11)
A volume knob for error reporting when internal errors occur.
This will generate detailed messages & backtraces for filesystem
shutdowns, for example. Current threshold values are:
fs.xfs.panic_mask (Min: 0 Default: 0 Max: 256)
OR together the tags which represent errors which should cause panics:
XFS_PTAG_IFLUSH 0x00000001
XFS_PTAG_LOGRES 0x00000002
This option is intended for debugging only.
fs.xfs.irix_symlink_mode (Min: 0 Default: 0 Max: 1)
Controls whether symlinks are created with mode 0777 (default)
fs.xfs.irix_sgid_inherit (Min: 0 Default: 0 Max: 1)
Controls files created in SGID directories.
ISGID bit is cleared if the irix_sgid_inherit compatibility sysctl
is set.
fs.xfs.inherit_sync (Min: 0 Default: 1 Max: 1)
by the **xfs_io(8)** chattr command on a directory to be
inherited by files in that directory.
fs.xfs.inherit_nodump (Min: 0 Default: 1 Max: 1)
inherited by files in that directory.
fs.xfs.inherit_noatime (Min: 0 Default: 1 Max: 1)
inherited by files in that directory.
fs.xfs.inherit_nosymlinks (Min: 0 Default: 1 Max: 1)
inherited by files in that directory.
fs.xfs.inherit_nodefrag (Min: 0 Default: 1 Max: 1)
Setting this to "1" will cause the "nodefrag" flag set
inherited by files in that directory.
fs.xfs.rotorstep (Min: 1 Default: 1 Max: 256)
In "inode32" allocation mode, this option determines how many
files the allocator attempts to allocate in the same allocation
group before moving to the next allocation group. The intent
is to control the rate at which the allocator moves between
allocation groups when allocating extents for new files.
Deprecated Sysctls
None at present.
Removed Sysctls
Name Removed
fs.xfs.xfsbufd_centisec v4.0
fs.xfs.age_buffer_centisecs v4.0
Error handling
XFS can act differently according to the type of error found during its
operation. The implementation introduces the following concepts to the error
-failure speed:
Defines how fast XFS should propagate an error upwards when a specific
error is found during the filesystem operation. It can propagate
immediately, after a defined number of retries, after a set time period,
or simply retry forever.
-error classes:
Specifies the subsystem the error configuration will apply to, such as
metadata IO or memory allocation. Different subsystems will have
different error handlers for which behaviour can be configured.
-error handlers:
Defines the behavior for a specific error.
The filesystem behavior during an error can be set via ``sysfs`` files. Each
error handler works independently - the first condition met by an error handler
for a specific class will cause the error to be propagated rather than reset and
The action taken by the filesystem when the error is propagated is context
dependent - it may cause a shut down in the case of an unrecoverable error,
it may be reported back to userspace, or it may even be ignored because
there's nothing useful we can with the error or anyone we can report it to (e.g.
during unmount).
The configuration files are organized into the following hierarchy for each
mounted filesystem:
The short device name of the mounted filesystem. This is the same device
name that shows up in XFS kernel error messages as "XFS(<dev>): ..."
The subsystem the error configuration belongs to. As of 4.9, the defined
classes are:
- "metadata": applies metadata buffer write IO
The individual error handler configurations.
Each filesystem has "global" error configuration options defined in their top
level directory:
fail_at_unmount (Min: 0 Default: 1 Max: 1)
Defines the filesystem error behavior at unmount time.
If set to a value of 1, XFS will override all other error configurations
during unmount and replace them with "immediate fail" characteristics.
i.e. no retries, no retry timeout. This will always allow unmount to
succeed when there are persistent errors present.
If set to 0, the configured retry behaviour will continue until all
retries and/or timeouts have been exhausted. This will delay unmount
completion when there are persistent errors, and it may prevent the
filesystem from ever unmounting fully in the case of "retry forever"
handler configurations.
Note: there is no guarantee that fail_at_unmount can be set while an
unmount is in progress. It is possible that the ``sysfs`` entries are
removed by the unmounting filesystem before a "retry forever" error
handler configuration causes unmount to hang, and hence the filesystem
must be configured appropriately before unmount begins to prevent
unmount hangs.
Each filesystem has specific error class handlers that define the error
propagation behaviour for specific errors. There is also a "default" error
handler defined, which defines the behaviour for all errors that don't have
specific handlers defined. Where multiple retry constraints are configured for
a single error, the first retry configuration that expires will cause the error
to be propagated. The handler configurations are found in the directory:
max_retries (Min: -1 Default: Varies Max: INTMAX)
Defines the allowed number of retries of a specific error before
the filesystem will propagate the error. The retry count for a given
error context (e.g. a specific metadata buffer) is reset every time
there is a successful completion of the operation.
Setting the value to "-1" will cause XFS to retry forever for this
specific error.
Setting the value to "0" will cause XFS to fail immediately when the
specific error is reported.
Setting the value to "N" (where 0 < N < Max) will make XFS retry the
operation "N" times before propagating the error.
retry_timeout_seconds (Min: -1 Default: Varies Max: 1 day)
Define the amount of time (in seconds) that the filesystem is
allowed to retry its operations when the specific error is
Setting the value to "-1" will allow XFS to retry forever for this
specific error.
specific error is reported.
Setting the value to "N" (where 0 < N < Max) will allow XFS to retry the
operation for up to "N" seconds before propagating the error.
**Note:** The default behaviour for a specific error handler is dependent on both
the class and error context. For example, the default values for
"metadata/ENODEV" are "0" rather than "-1" so that this error handler defaults
to "fail immediately" behaviour. This is done because ENODEV is a fatal,
unrecoverable error no matter how many times the metadata IO is retried.