How to Show File Attributes in Linux

Written by: Bobbin Zachariah   |   Last updated: July 9, 2022

Linux provides us the access control by file and directory permissions on three levels which are user, group, and other. These file permissions provide the basic level of security and access control.

Linux also has advanced access control features like ACLs (Access Control Lists) and attributes. Attributes define the properties of files. This guide describes what these attributes are and how we can access them.

Attributes in Linux

Some filesystems support additional attributes (other than those described in the preceding sections). In particular, some Linux-native filesystems support several attributes that you can adjust with the chattr command. The files and directories can have the following attributes:

  • a - append only
  • c - compressed
  • d - no dump
  • e - extent format
  • i - immutable
  • j - data journaling
  • s - secure deletion
  • t - no tail-merging
  • u - undeletable
  • A - no atime updates
  • D - synchronous directory updates
  • S - synchronous updates
  • T - top of directory hierarchy

Define each file attributes

The detailed meaning of these attributes according to the manual page is:

  • a - append only: this attribute allows a file to be added to, but not to be removed. It prevents accidental or malicious changes to files that record data, such as log files.
  • c - compressed: it causes the kernel to compress data written to the file automatically and uncompress it when it’s read back.
  • d - no dump: it makes sure the file is not backed up in backups where the dump utility is used
  • e - extent format: it indicates that the file is using extents for mapping the blocks on disk.
  • i - immutable: it makes a file immutable, which goes a step beyond simply disabling write access to the file. The file can’t be deleted, links to it can’t be created, and the file can’t be renamed.
  • j - data journaling: it ensures that on an Ext3 file system the file is first written to the journal and only after that to the data blocks on the hard disk.
  • s - secure deletion: it makes sure that recovery of a file is not possible after it has been deleted.
  • t - no tail-merging: Tail-merging is a process in which small data pieces at a file’s end that don’t fill a complete block are merged with similar pieces of data from other files.
  • u - undeletable: When a file is deleted, its contents are saved which allows a utility to be developed that works with that information to salvage deleted files.
  • A - no atime updates: Linux won’t update the access time stamp when you access a file.
  • D - synchronous directory updates: it makes sure that changes to files are written to disk immediately, and not to cache first.
  • S - synchronous updates: the changes on a file are written synchronously on the disk.
  • T - and top of directory hierarchy: A directory will be deemed to be the top of directory hierarchies for the purposes of the Orlov block allocator.

How to list file attribute using lsattr command

Some Linux-native filesystems support several attributes that you can list with the lsattr command. To list attribute of files and sub-directory of the current directory, do

$ lsattr
 -----a-----------e- ./file1
 ----i------------e- ./hello_dir
 -----------------e- ./usrcopy
 -----------------e- ./special_characters
 -----------------e- ./file3
 -----------------e- ./contents
 -----------------e- ./hard_link
 -----------------e- ./usrlisting

Here we can see that the directory 'hello_dir' is immutable, and the file named 'file1' is append only file.

You can list the attribute of the contents of a particular directory with lsattr command followed with a file or directory name as the argument.

$ lsattr script-test/
-------------e-- script-test/password-gen.sh
-------------e-- script-test/continue.sh
-------------e-- script-test/hello
-------------e-- script-test/folder1

As the ls -l command, the -d option with lsattr will list the attributes of the directory itself instead of the files in that directory.

$ # lsattr -d script-test/
-------------e-- script-test/

The -R option will list the attributes of a directory recursively. It means that it will show the attributes of the sub-directories's contents

$ lsattr -R script-test/
-------------e-- script-test/password-gen.sh
-------------e-- script-test/continue.sh
-------------e-- script-test/hello
-------------e-- script-test/folder1

script-test/folder1:
----i--------e-- script-test/folder1/file1

You can see that, it shows the attributes of the content of 'folder1' too

You can have the version of the program with the -V option

$ lsattr -V
lsattr 1.42.9 (28-Dec-2013)
-------------e-- ./jdk-8u65-linux-x64.tar.gz
-------------e-- ./ttyrec-1.0.6-1.i586.rpm.1
-------------e-- ./bootstrap

Conclusion

Although there are quite a few attributes that can be used, you should be aware that most attributes are rather experimental and only of any use if an application is employed that can work with the given attribute.

About The Author

Bobbin Zachariah

Bobbin Zachariah

Bobbin Zachariah is an experienced Linux engineer who has been supporting infrastructure for many companies. He specializes in Shell scripting, AWS Cloud, JavaScript, and Nodejs. He has qualified Master’s degree in computer science. He holds Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification and RedHat Enable Sysadmin.

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