NAME

getextattr, lsextattr, rmextattr, setextattr — manipulate extended attributes

SYNOPSIS

getextattr

[-fhq] [-s | -x | -v style] [namespace] attrname filename ...

lsextattr

[-fhq] namespace filename ...

rmextattr

[-fhq] [namespace] attrname filename ...

setextattr

[-fhnq] [namespace] attrname attrvalue filename ...

setextattr

[-fhnq] -i valuefile [namespace] attrname filename ...

DESCRIPTION

These utilities are user tools to manipulate the named extended attributes on files and directories.

The namespace argument should be the namespace of the attribute to retrieve: legal values are user and system. For all operations except lsextattr, the namespace argument may be omitted if the attribute name is namespace prefixed, like in user.test. In that later case, the user namespace prefix obviously selects user namespace. system, security, and trusted namespace prefixes select the system namespace.

The attrname argument should be the name of the attribute, filename the name of the target file or directory, attrvalue a string to store in the attribute.

The following options are available:

-f

(Force.) Ignore errors on individual filenames and continue with the remaining arguments.

-h

(No follow.) If the file is a symbolic link, perform the operation on the link itself rather than the file that the link points to.

-i valuefile

(Input file.) Read the attribute value from file valuefile. Use this flag in order to set a binary value for an attribute.

-n

(NUL-terminate.) NUL-terminate the extent content written out.

-q

(Quiet.) Do not print out the pathname and suppress error messages.

-s

(Stringify.) Escape nonprinting characters and put quotes around the output.

-v style

(Visual.) Process the attribute value through vis(3), using style. Valid values for style are:

default

Use default vis(3) encoding.

c

Use C-style backslash sequences, like in vis -c.

http

Use URI encoding from RFC 1808, like in vis -h.

octal

Display in octal, like in vis -o.

vis

Alias for default.

cstyle

Alias for c.

httpstyle

Alias for http.

-x

(Hex.) Print the output in hexadecimal.

EXAMPLES

setextattr system md5 `md5 -q /boot/kernel/kernel` /boot/kernel/kernel 
getextattr system md5 /boot/kernel/kernel 
lsextattr system /boot/kernel/kernel 
rmextattr system md5 /boot/kernel/kernel

Examples omitting namespace (and attribute value) argument:

setextattr -i valuefile trusted.gfid /export/wd3a 
getextattr -x trusted.gfid /export/wd3a

SEE ALSO

extattr(3), extattrctl(8), extattr(9)

HISTORY

Extended attribute support was developed as part of the TrustedBSD Project, and introduced in FreeBSD 5.0 and NetBSD 3.0. It was developed to support security extensions requiring additional labels to be associated with each file or directory.

Extended attribute support was resurrected and made more usable in NetBSD 5.2.

AUTHORS

Robert N M Watson Poul-Henning Kamp Emmanuel Dreyfus