FFSINFO(8)

💖 ffsinfo(8) — the ufs meta-info dump bestie 💖

okay so this is the FFSINFO(8) page from the System Manager's Manual, and it's literally about dumping all the meta info from an existing ufs file system. no cap, it's a whole vibe. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

ffsinfo — dump all meta information of an existing ufs file system 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ffsinfo [-g cylinder_group] [-i inode] [-l level] [-o outfile] special | file

🧚 DESCRIPTION 🧚

okay so ffsinfo is the utility that extends dumpfs(8). it's giving “dumpfs but make it extra.” 💖

the output is appended to the file outfile. also, bestie, expect that output file to be rather large — up to 2 percent of the size of the specified file system is not uncommon. 😭 no like literally huge. 🫶

the following options are available:

💅 the options, bestie 💅

• -g cylinder_group — this restricts the dump to info about this cylinder group only. here 0 means the first cylinder group and -1 the last one. 🌀
• -i inode — this restricts the dump to info about this particular inode only. here the minimum acceptable inode is 2. if this option is omitted but a cylinder group is defined, then only inodes within that cylinder group are dumped. 🔍
• -l level — the level of detail that gets dumped. this value defaults to 255 and is the “bitwise or” of the following table:
  • 0x001 — initial superblock
  • 0x002 — superblock copies in each cylinder group
  • 0x004 — cylinder group summary in initial cylinder group
  • 0x008 — cylinder group information
  • 0x010 — inode allocation bitmap
  • 0x020 — fragment allocation bitmap
  • 0x040 — cluster maps and summary
  • 0x100 — inode information
  • 0x200 — indirect block dump
• -o outfile — this sets the output filename where the dump is written to, and must be specified. if - is provided, output will be sent to stdout. 📝

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

ffsinfo -o /var/tmp/ffsinfo -l 1023 /dev/md0

will dump /dev/md0 to /var/tmp/ffsinfo with all available information. slay. ✨

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

ffs(4), dumpfs(8), fsck(8), gpart(8), growfs(8), newfs(8), tunefs(8) — go read these too, bestie. iykyk. 🫶

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

the ffsinfo utility first appeared in FreeBSD 4.4. vintage icon behavior. 👑

💜 AUTHORS 💜

• Christoph Herrmann <chm@FreeBSD.org>
• Thomas-Henning von Kamptz <tomsoft@FreeBSD.org>
• The GROWFS team <growfs@Tomsoft.COM>

these are the legends behind it. periodt. 🫶

💀 BUGS 💀

snapshots are handled like plain files. they should get their own level to provide for independent control of the amount of what gets dumped. it probably also makes sense to some extent to dump the snapshot as a file system. 🙈

that's the tea — it's a known vibe check fail, not a mystery. 😭

💖 sign-off: this is the Debian FFSINFO(8) manual page, dated January 23, 2025 — byeee bestie, go dump some meta info 🫶