NILFS_CLEANERD.CONF(5)

✨ NAME ✨

nilfs_cleanerd.conf — bestie, it's the config file for nilfs_cleanerd(8) 💅

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Okay so. The nilfs_cleanerd.conf file is the configuration file for nilfs_cleanerd(8), which is the lil daemon that reclaims disk space on your NILFS2 filesystem. This file is where you tell it all the parameters for garbage collection (GC) and how the daemon program should behave. It's giving ✨control freak✨ but in a good way.

The file holds keyword argument pairs or keyword-only directives, one per line. Lines that start with # are read as comments. Comment lines and empty lines? Ignored, we don't see them, they're not real 🫶

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🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

Here's every keyword and what it means (and heads up bestie — keywords AND arguments are both case-sensitive, so don't get cute with the caps):

• protection_period — Sets the period during which each checkpoint is protected from the garbage collector, in seconds. NILFS2 GC will never delete checkpoints and their blocks whose duration time is less than this value. The default value is 3600, meaning one hour. ⏳
• min_clean_segments — Sets the minimum number of clean segments. A value of 0 means continuous cleaning. A value greater than 0 means pause cleaning until less than min_clean_segments are available.
• max_clean_segments — Sets the maximum number of clean segments. If min_clean_segments is 0, this value is ignored. If more than max_clean_segments are available, cleaning is paused until less than min_clean_segments are available.

min_clean_segments and max_clean_segments may be followed by a percent sign or the following multiplicative suffixes: kB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000, M 1024*1024, GB 1000*1000*1000, G 1024*1024*1024, and so on for T, P, E. If the argument is followed by a percent sign, it represents a disk capacity ratio.

The default values of min_clean_segments and max_clean_segments are 10 percent and 20 percent respectively. 🌸

• clean_check_interval — Sets the interval to wait between checks of min_clean_segments. If min_clean_segments is 0, this value is ignored. The default value is 10.
• selection_policy — Sets the GC policy. At present, only the timestamp policy, which reclaims segments in order from oldest to newest, is supported. (So yeah, that's the only one on the menu rn 💀)
• nsegments_per_clean — Sets the number of segments reclaimed by a single cleaning step. The default value is 2.
• mc_nsegments_per_clean — Sets the number of segments reclaimed by a single cleaning step if clean segments < min_clean_segments. The default value is 4.
• cleaning_interval — Sets the cleaning interval in seconds. The default value is 5.
• mc_cleaning_interval — Sets the cleaning interval in seconds if clean segments < min_clean_segments. The default value is 1.
• retry_interval — Sets the retry interval in seconds. This value provides the retry interval of GC in case of resource shortages. The default value is 60.
• use_mmap — Sets whether to use mmap(2) for reading segments. At present, this option is enabled if supported regardless of this directive. (So like… it does what it wants 🙈)
• use_set_suinfo — Sets whether to use the set_suinfo ioctl if it is supported. This is necessary for the min_reclaimable_blocks feature. By disabling this switch, min_reclaimable_blocks is also disabled. 🔗
• min_reclaimable_blocks — Sets the minimum number of reclaimable blocks in a segment before it can be cleaned.
• mc_min_reclaimable_blocks — Sets the minimum number of reclaimable blocks in a segment before it can be cleaned, if clean segments < min_clean_segments.

min_reclaimable_blocks and mc_min_reclaimable_blocks may be followed by a percent sign or the following multiplicative suffixes: kB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000, M 1024*1024, GB 1000*1000*1000, G 1024*1024*1024, and so on for T, P, E. If the argument is followed by a percent sign, it represents the ratio of blocks in a segment.

The default values of min_reclaimable_blocks and mc_min_reclaimable_blocks are 10 percent and 1 percent respectively. ✨

• log_priority — Gives the verbosity level that is used when logging messages from nilfs_cleanerd(8). The possible values are: emerg, alert, crit, err, warning, notice, info, and debug. The default is info. 📢

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Since nilfs-utils 2.1, subsecond values can be specified for time interval parameters in decimal fraction format. This applies to protection_period, clean_check_interval, cleaning_interval, mc_cleaning_interval, and retry_interval. 🕐✨

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🦋 FILES 🦋

• /etc/nilfs_cleanerd.conf — Configuration file for nilfs_cleanerd(8).

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• nilfs_cleanerd(8).

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ok bestie that's the whole page, no cap. go forth and configure, you absolute icon 🫶💖

nilfs-utils version 2.3 · Jan 2026 · mwah, that's the sign-off, slay 💅🌈⭐