NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | REPORTING BUGS | AVAILABILITY |
|
|
FALLOCATE(1) User Commands FALLOCATE(1)
fallocate - preallocate or deallocate space to a file
fallocate [-c|-p|-z] [-o offset] -l length [-n] filename fallocate -d [-o offset] [-l length] filename fallocate -x [-o offset] -l length filename
fallocate is used to manipulate the allocated disk space for a file, either to deallocate or preallocate it. For filesystems which support the fallocate(2) system call, preallocation is done quickly by allocating blocks and marking them as uninitialized, requiring no IO to the data blocks. This is much faster than creating a file by filling it with zeroes. The exit status returned by fallocate is 0 on success and 1 on failure.
The length 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. The options --collapse-range, --dig-holes, --punch-hole, and --zero-range are mutually exclusive. -c, --collapse-range Removes a byte range from a file, without leaving a hole. The byte range to be collapsed starts at offset and continues for length bytes. At the completion of the operation, the contents of the file starting at the location offset+length will be appended at the location offset, and the file will be length bytes smaller. The option --keep-size may not be specified for the collapse-range operation. Available since Linux 3.15 for ext4 (only for extent-based files) and XFS. A filesystem may place limitations on the granularity of the operation, in order to ensure efficient implementation. Typically, offset and length must be a multiple of the filesystem logical block size, which varies according to the filesystem type and configuration. If a filesystem has such a requirement, the operation will fail with the error EINVAL if this requirement is violated. -d, --dig-holes Detect and dig holes. This makes the file sparse in-place, without using extra disk space. The minimum size of the hole depends on filesystem I/O block size (usually 4096 bytes). Also, when using this option, --keep-size is implied. If no range is specified by --offset and --length, then the entire file is analyzed for holes. You can think of this option as doing a "cp --sparse" and then renaming the destination file to the original, without the need for extra disk space. See --punch-hole for a list of supported filesystems. -i, --insert-range Insert a hole of length bytes from offset, shifting existing data. -l, --length length Specifies the length of the range, in bytes. -n, --keep-size Do not modify the apparent length of the file. This may effectively allocate blocks past EOF, which can be removed with a truncate. -o, --offset offset Specifies the beginning offset of the range, in bytes. -p, --punch-hole Deallocates space (i.e., creates a hole) in the byte range starting at offset and continuing for length bytes. Within the specified range, partial filesystem blocks are zeroed, and whole filesystem blocks are removed from the file. After a successful call, subsequent reads from this range will return zeroes. This option may not be specified at the same time as the --zero-range option. Also, when using this option, --keep-size is implied. Supported for XFS (since Linux 2.6.38), ext4 (since Linux 3.0), Btrfs (since Linux 3.7), tmpfs (since Linux 3.5) and gfs2 (since Linux 4.16). -v, --verbose Enable verbose mode. -x, --posix Enable POSIX operation mode. In that mode allocation operation always completes, but it may take longer time when fast allocation is not supported by the underlying filesystem. -z, --zero-range Zeroes space in the byte range starting at offset and continuing for length bytes. Within the specified range, blocks are preallocated for the regions that span the holes in the file. After a successful call, subsequent reads from this range will return zeroes. Zeroing is done within the filesystem preferably by converting the range into unwritten extents. This approach means that the specified range will not be physically zeroed out on the device (except for partial blocks at the either end of the range), and I/O is (otherwise) required only to update metadata. Option --keep-size can be specified to prevent file length modification. Available since Linux 3.14 for ext4 (only for extent-based files) and XFS. -h, --help Display help text and exit. -V, --version Print version and exit.
Eric Sandeen <[email protected]>, Karel Zak <[email protected]>
truncate(1), fallocate(2), posix_fallocate(3)
For bug reports, use the issue tracker at https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues.
The fallocate command is part of the util-linux package which can
be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. This page
is part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux
utilities) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have
a bug report for this manual page, send it to
[email protected]. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
2024-06-14. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
that was found in the repository was 2024-06-10.) If you discover
any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
or you have corrections or improvements to the information in
this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
send a mail to [email protected]
util-linux 2.39.594-1e0ad 2023-07-19 FALLOCATE(1)
Pages that refer to this page: fallocate(2), posix_fallocate(3), swapon(8)