NVME-ID-PRIMARY-C(1)

💅 nvme-id-primary-ctrl-caps 💅

okay so bestie, you're in the NVMe Manual, and this page is nvme-id-primary-ctrl-caps — the one that sends an identify Primary Controller Caps command and hands you back the result and the returned structure. it's giving “controller caps, but make it fetchable.” ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

nvme-id-primary-ctrl-caps — Send identify Primary Controller Caps, return result and structure. periodt. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

nvme [<global-options>] id primary-ctrl-caps <device>

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

For the NVMe device you give it, this sends an identify primary Controller caps command and provides the result plus the returned structure. no cap. 🫶

The <device> parameter is mandatory — not optional, bestie — and it may be either the NVMe character device (ex: /dev/nvme0), or a namespace block device (ex: /dev/nvme0n1). 🎀

On success, the structure may be returned in one of several ways depending on the option flags; the structure may be parsed by the program, or the raw buffer may be printed to stdout. that's the vibe check. ✨

✨ OPTIONS ✨

🌐 GLOBAL OPTIONS 🌐

The following options are defined at the top-level nvme command and are available to this subcommand:

• --dry-run — Print the command that would be executed, but do not actually execute it.
• --no-ioctl-probing — Disable probing for 64-bit IOCTL support.
• --no-retries — Disable retry logic on transient errors.
• -o <fmt>, --output-format=<fmt> — Set the reporting format to normal, tabular, 'json, or binary. Only one output format may be used at a time.
• --output-format-version=<version> — Select the output format version. Version 1 uses the original field naming, while version 2 (default) provides more consistent and script-friendly field names. Other versions are rejected.
• --quiet — Suppress informational messages. Errors are still reported, and --quiet cancels any --verbose for the library log level.
• --set-options=<key=value>[,<key=value>...] — Set libnvme library options for this invocation. Supported keys are force-4k, mi-probe-enabled, test-base-dir and test-sysfs-dir.
• --timeout=<ms> — Set the timeout for the command in milliseconds. infinite or -1 waits without a time limit (0xffffffff).
• -v, --verbose — Increase the level of detail in the output. May be specified multiple times to further increase verbosity.

These options can also be set as machine-wide defaults in nvme-cli.conf(5). A command-line flag always overrides the file. 💜

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

• Get Primary Ctrl Caps of the device in default format:

# nvme id primary-ctrl-caps /dev/nvme0

• Has the program interpret the returned buffer and display the known fields in a human readable format:

# nvme id primary-ctrl-caps /dev/nvme0 --verbose
# nvme id primary-ctrl-caps /dev/nvme0 -v

👑 NVME 👑

Part of the nvme-user suite. iconic, honestly. 💖

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kisses 💋 — source/version vibes from NVMe, dated 10/30/2026, and this lil page is still NVME-ID-PRIMARY-C(1). 🌈✨