GEOM(8)

🌸 GEOM(8) — universal control utility for GEOM classes 🌸

okay bestie, welcome to GEOM(8) from the System Manager's Manual — yes, that one, and yes it's as iconic as everyone says 💅 this is the page that tells you how to boss around your GEOM classes, and honestly? it ate.

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✨ NAME ✨

geom — the universal control utility for GEOM classes. one tool, all the classes, main character energy fr 🫶

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

geom class help
geom [--libxo] class list [-a] [name ...]
geom [--libxo] class status [-ags] [name ...]
geom class load [-v]
geom class unload [-v]
geom -p provider-name
geom -t

like… look at those forms. every single one is a mood 💖

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the geom utility is literally the utility for controlling all the various GEOM classes. a class has to be aware of the geom communication methods, but — and this is the cute part — there are also some standard commands you can use on existing classes that are not geom-aware. iykyk 😌

here's the list of standard commands:

• help — lists literally all the available commands for the given class. the full menu, no gatekeeping 🍓
• list — prints detailed info (within the given class) about all the geoms if you gave no extra arguments, or about just the geoms you named. heads up though: this command only exists if the given class exists in the kernel. extra options, bestie:
  • -a — prints info for geoms without providers.
• status — prints general info (within the given class) about all the geoms (again, all of them if you passed no extra arguments) or the geoms you named. same caveat: only available if the given class exists in the kernel ✨

additional options include:

• -a — when you use it with -g, prints status for geoms without providers.
• -g — reports statuses for geoms instead of providers.
• -s — produces script-friendly output. for the girlies who pipe things into scripts 💅

• load — loads the kernel module that implements the given class. only available if the class does not exist in the kernel yet and the file geom_⟨class⟩.ko can be found in one of the directories specified in the kern.module_path sysctl. very "you must be this tall to ride" of it tbh 🎢
• unload — unloads the kernel module that implements the given class. only available if the given class is loaded as a kernel module. bye bestie 👋

additional options include:

• -p provider-name — prints detailed information about the geom which provides provider-name.
• -t — displays the geoms hierarchy as a tree 🌳 (aesthetic and informative)
• --libxo — generates output via libxo(3) in a selection of different human- and machine-readable formats. see xo_options(7) for the details on command line arguments ✨

class-specific commands are implemented as shared libraries which are stored in the /lib/geom/ directory and are loaded via the dlopen(3) function when the class name is known. and listen — when a class-specific shared library exists, a direct utility should also be available under the name of gclass 👑

currently, the classes aware of geom are:

• CACHE
• CONCAT
• DISK
• ELI
• JOURNAL
• LABEL
• MD
• MIRROR
• MOUNTVER
• MULTIPATH
• NOP
• PART
• RAID
• RAID3
• SCHED
• SHSEC
• STRIPE
• UNION
• VFS
• VIRSTOR

twenty of them. twenty!! we love a full roster 💜

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

these environment variables affect how geom runs:

• GEOM_LIBRARY_PATH — specifies the path where shared libraries are stored, instead of /lib/geom/. you can specify multiple paths with a colon-separated list of paths 🎀

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

exit status is 0 on success, and 1 if the command fails. simple, clean, no drama 🙈

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

this example shows how to set up a stripe on three disks for automatic configuration:

geom stripe label -v -s 65536 data /dev/da0 /dev/da1 /dev/da2

or, the direct-utility way (same energy, shorter name):

gstripe label -v -s 65536 data /dev/da0 /dev/da1 /dev/da2

print the list of all providers from the DISK class:

geom disk list

unload a kernel module which implements the MD class:

geom md unload

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💀 SEE ALSO 💀

libgeom(3), geom(4), xo_options(7), gcache(8), gconcat(8), geli(8), gjournal(8), glabel(8), gmirror(8), gmountver(8), gmultipath(8), gnop(8), gpart(8), graid3(8), gshsec(8), gstripe(8), gunion(8), gvirstor(8) — go read the whole friend group 🫶

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🧚 HISTORY 🧚

the geom utility appeared in FreeBSD 5.3. a legend since day one, no cap 💖

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

Pawel Jakub Dawidek <pjd@FreeBSD.org> — ty for your service king 🫡

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ok that's the whole page, and yes you do need all of it, especially the -a, -g, -s combo for status 💀

and that's a wrap!! this cutie came to you from Debian, dated February 5, 2026 — the footer said it, so i said it 💅✨ go forth and geom responsibly bestie 🌸🦋🎀