BTRFS-SEARCH-METADATA(1)

NAME
btrfs-search-metadata - lookup btrfs metadata

SYNOPSIS
btrfs-search-metadata <subcommand> <args>

DESCRIPTION
The btrfs-search-metadata program can be used to execute search queries in order to look up metadata items of an online, mounted btrfs filesystem. Unlike the btrfs inspect-internal dump-tree command, which directly reads from disk, btrfs-search-metadata only uses the kernel SEARCH ioctl function. Besides being able to get any metadata slice from any tree, there are a number of convenience presets that execute predefined search queries.

GLOBAL OPTIONS

-h, --help
    Show the built-in help message and exit.

--format keys|short|long
    Print metadata items as keys only, as a short single line per item (default), or long output with full contents of all fields.

SUBCOMMANDS

chunks <path>
    Display all chunk items from the chunk tree, as well as the stripe items that they contain.
block_groups <path>
    Display all block group items from the extent tree.
dev_extents <path>
    Display all device extent items from the device tree.
file <path>
    Display all information btrfs knows about a file or directory.
inode -t|--tree <tree> --inum <inum> <path>
    Display all information about an inode number in a subvolume tree.
devices <path>
    Display all device items from the device tree.
orphans <path>
    Display all orphan items from the root tree.
dump -t|--tree <tree> [--min-key <MIN_KEY>] [--max-key <MAX_KEY>] <path>
    Dump an arbitrary slice of metadata items from any tree. A key should be specified in the regular form as '(<objectid> <type> <offset>)', e.g. '(EXTENT_TREE ROOT_ITEM 0)'. The number -1 can be used instead of the maximum value for a field. This can be very useful when dumping all metadata items for a specific objectid. For example, what the inode subcommand does is searching with min-key '(<inum> 0 0)' and max-key '(<inum> -1 -1)'
block_group_contents --vaddr <vaddr> <path>
    Dump the contents of a block group (from the extent tree) from the specified virtual address of the start of the block group to its end. Use the block_groups subcommand to list block group addresses.
block_group_free_space --vaddr <vaddr> <path>
    Dump the free space extents for a block group (from the free space tree) for the block group at the specified virtual address. Use the block_groups subcommand to list block group addresses.

SEE ALSO
This program is an example of what can be done using the python-btrfs library. Source and documentation on github: https://github.com/knorrie/python-btrfs