SETFATTR(1)                     File Utilities                     SETFATTR(1)

NAME
       setfattr - set extended attributes of filesystem objects

SYNOPSIS
       setfattr [-h] -n name [-v value] pathname...
       setfattr [-h] -x name pathname...
       setfattr [-h] --restore=file

DESCRIPTION
       The setfattr command associates a new value with an extended attribute
       name for each specified file.

OPTIONS
       -n name, --name=name
           Specifies the name of the extended attribute to set.

       -v value, --value=value
           Specifies the new value of the extended attribute. There are three
           methods available for encoding the value.  If the given string is
           enclosed in double quotes, the inner string is treated as text. In
           that case, backslashes and double quotes have special meanings and
           need to be escaped by a preceding backslash. Any control characters
           can be encoded as a backslash followed by three digits as its ASCII
           code in octal. If the given string begins with 0x or 0X, it
           expresses a hexadecimal number. If the given string begins with 0s
           or 0S, base64 encoding is expected.  Also see the --encoding option
           of getfattr(1).

       -x name, --remove=name
           Remove the named extended attribute entirely.

       -h, --no-dereference
           Do not follow symlinks.  If pathname is a symbolic link, it is not
           followed, but is instead itself the inode being modified.

       --restore=file
           Restores extended attributes from file.  The file must be in the
           format generated by the getfattr command with the --dump option.
           If a dash (-) is given as the file name, setfattr reads from
           standard input.

       --raw
           Do not decode the attribute value. Can be used to set values
           obtained with getfattr --only-values.

       --version
           Print the version of setfattr and exit.

       --help
           Print help explaining the command line options.

       --  End of command line options.  All remaining parameters are
           interpreted as file names, even if they start with a dash
           character.

EXAMPLES
       Add extended attribute to user namespace:

       $ setfattr -n user.foo -v bar file.txt

       To add md5sum of the file as an extended attribute:

       # setfattr -n trusted.md5sum -v d41d8cd98f00b204e00998ecf8427e file.txt

AUTHOR
       Andreas Gruenbacher, <andreas.gruenbacher@gmail.com> and the SGI XFS
       development team, <linux-xfs@oss.sgi.com>.

       Please send your bug reports or comments to
       <https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=attr> or
       <acl-devel@nongnu.org>.

SEE ALSO
       getfattr(1), xattr(7)

Dec 2001                      Extended Attributes                  SETFATTR(1)