ZBC(8)

💅 ZBC — zbc_open_zone, but make it make sense

okay bestie, welcome to the ZBC(8) page from the System Manager's Manual — yes that whole manual, we're in it. this is the glow-up version, same facts, way better vibes. let's go 🎀

---

✨ NAME ✨

zbc_open_zone — the little tool that explicitly opens zones on a ZBC or ZAC device. that's it, that's the job, and it eats every time 💅

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

zbc_open_zone [options] device [zone]

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so zbc_open_zone is literally there to explicitly open one zone or all the zones of a ZBC or ZAC device. no cap, that's the whole personality.

the device argument has to be the pathname to the target device block device file (think /dev/sdb), or the pathname to the target device SG node file (like /dev/sg3). quick heads up tho 🫶 — on old kernels that don't have ZBC and ZAC support, only the device SG node file is gonna be available. so if you're on a crusty kernel, that's your only lane.

the zone argument tells it which zone to open. and it gets ignored completely if you use the -all option — like, it's just not invited to the party anymore 🙈.

by default, the zone argument means a zone number, starting from 0 for the first zone of the device. but there's lore:

• if you pass the -lba option, the zone argument gets read as the start LBA of the zone you wanna explicitly open.
• if you pass the -sector option, the zone argument gets read as the start sector (512B unit) of the zone to open.

---

🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

here's the lineup, bestie. the following options can be specified:

• -h, --help — prints a usage help message and dips. that's it, that's the whole thing ✨
• -v — verbose mode, aka debugging mode when things are being weird 👀
• -sector — interprets the zone argument as the start sector (512B unit) of the zone to open.
• -lba — interprets the zone argument as the start LBA of the zone to open.
• -all — ignores the zone argument entirely and opens all zones of the device. main character energy, opens everything 💀

---

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Damien Le Moal <damien.lemoal@wdc.com> — icon, legend, the moment. 🫶

---

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

blkzone(8) — go read that one too, iykyk.

---

⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

the zbc_open_zone utility is part of the libzbc library, which you can grab over at https://github.com/westerndigitalcorporation/libzbc. go get it bestie 🧚

---

ok so real talk before you go — this page is from ZBC(8), part of the System Manager's Manual, and it was brought to you by the fine folks keeping ZBC(8) alive. read it, love it, open those zones responsibly 💖✨🌸

— xoxo, your resident unix bestie 🎀💜