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FSDB(8) 		     System Manager's Manual			 FSDB(8)

NAME
     fsdb -- FFS debugging/editing tool

SYNOPSIS
     fsdb [-d] [-f] [-r] fsname

DESCRIPTION
     The  fsdb	utility  opens	fsname (usually a raw disk partition) and runs a
     command loop allowing manipulation of the file system's  inode  data.   You
     are  prompted  to	enter  a command with fsdb (inum X)> where X is the cur-
     rently selected i-number.	The initial selected inode is the  root  of  the
     file  system  (i-number 2).  The command processor uses the editline(3) li-
     brary, so you can use command line editing to  reduce  typing  if	desired.
     When  you exit the command loop, the file system superblock is marked dirty
     and any buffered blocks are written to the file system.

     The following options are available:

     -d      Enable additional debugging  output  (which  comes  primarily  from
	     fsck(8)-derived code).

     -f      Left for historical reasons and has no meaning.

     -r      Open  the	file  system  read/only,  and disables all commands that
	     would write to it.

COMMANDS
     Besides the built-in editline(3) commands, fsdb supports these commands:

     help    Print out the list of accepted commands.

     inode i-number
	     Select inode i-number as the new current inode.

     back    Revert to the previously current inode.

     clri i-number
	     Clear i-number.

     lookup name
     cd name
	     Find name in the current directory and make its inode  the  current
	     inode.   Name may be a multi-component name or may begin with slash
	     to indicate that the root inode should be used to start the lookup.
	     If some component along the pathname is not found, the  last  valid
	     directory encountered is left as the active inode.  This command is
	     valid only if the starting inode is a directory.

     active
     print   Print out the active inode.

     blocks  Print out the block list of the active inode.  Note that the print-
	     out  can  become  long  for  large  files, since all indirect block
	     pointers will also be printed.

     findblk disk_block_number ...
	     Find the inode(s) owning the  specified  disk  block(s)  number(s).
	     Note  that  these are not absolute disk blocks numbers, but offsets
	     from the start of the partition.

     uplink  Increment the active inode's link count.

     downlink
	     Decrement the active inode's link count.

     linkcount number
	     Set the active inode's link count to number.

     ls      List the current inode's directory entries.  This command is  valid
	     only if the current inode is a directory.

     rm name
     del name
	     Remove  the entry name from the current directory inode.  This com-
	     mand is valid only if the current inode is a directory.

     ln ino name
	     Create a link to inode ino under the name name in the  current  di-
	     rectory  inode.  This command is valid only if the current inode is
	     a directory.

     chinum dirslot inum
	     Change the i-number in directory entry dirslot to inum.

     chname dirslot name
	     Change the name in directory entry dirslot to name.   This  command
	     cannot  expand  a directory entry.  You can only rename an entry if
	     the name will fit into the existing directory slot.

     chtype type
	     Change the type of the current inode to type.  Type may be one  of:
	     file, dir, socket, or fifo.

     chmod mode
	     Change  the  mode	bits  of  the current inode to mode.  You cannot
	     change the file type with this subcommand; use chtype to do that.

     chflags flags
	     Change the file flags of the current inode to flags.

     chown uid
	     Change the owner of the current inode to uid.

     chgrp gid
	     Change the group of the current inode to gid.

     chgen gen
	     Change the generation number of the current inode to gen.

     btime time
     mtime time
     ctime time
     atime time
	     Change the creation (birth), modification, change, or  access  time
	     (respectively) on the current inode to time.  Time should be in the
	     format  YYYYMMDDHHMMSS[.nsec]  where nsec is an optional nanosecond
	     specification.  If no nanoseconds	are  specified,  the  birthnsec,
	     mtimensec, ctimensec, or atimensec field will be set to zero.  Note
	     that btime is available on UFS2 file systems only.

     quit, q, exit, <EOF>
	     Exit the program.

SEE ALSO
     editline(3), fs(5), clri(8), fsck(8)

HISTORY
     The  fsdb	utility  appeared  in 4.3BSD-Tahoe.  It used the source code for
     fsck(8) to implement most of the file system manipulation	code.	The  re-
     mainder  of  fsdb appeared in NetBSD 1.1 written by John T. Kohl.	It first
     appeared in FreeBSD 2.1.5 ported by Peter Wemm.

BUGS
     Manipulation of ``short'' symlinks  has  no  effect.   In	particular,  one
     should not try changing a symlink's type.

     You must specify modes as numbers rather than symbolic names.

     There are a bunch of other things that you might want to do which fsdb does
     not implement.

WARNING
     Use  this	tool with extreme caution--you can damage an FFS file system be-
     yond what fsck(8) can repair.

FreeBSD ports 15.1		 October 3, 2016			 FSDB(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=fsdb&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE+and+Ports>

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