The btrfs filesystem command is a command-line utility in Linux that is used to manage and manipulate btrfs file systems. btrfs filesystem is a utility that is included in the btrfs-progs package, which is a collection of tools and libraries for managing btrfs file systems.
Btrfs is a copy-on-write (CoW) file system that is included in the Linux kernel and is known for its advanced features and capabilities, such as snapshotting, incremental backups, and more. btrfs filesystem is a tool that allows you to create, delete, and modify btrfs file systems, as well as perform various other operations on them.
To use btrfs filesystem, you will need to have the btrfs-progs package installed on your Linux system. btrfs-progs is usually available as a package in the repositories of popular Linux distributions, and you can install it using the package manager for your specific distribution.
btrfs filesystem Command Examples
1. Show filesystem usage (optionally run as root to show detailed information):
# btrfs filesystem usage /path/to/btrfs_mount
2. Show usage by individual devices:
# btrfs filesystem show /path/to/btrfs_mount
3. Defragment a single file on a btrfs filesystem (avoid while a deduplication agent is running):
# btrfs filesystem defragment -v /path/to/file
4. Defragment a directory recursively (does not cross subvolume boundaries):
# btrfs filesystem defragment -v -r /path/to/directory
5. Force syncing unwritten data blocks to disk(s):
# btrfs filesystem sync /path/to/btrfs_mount
6. Summarize disk usage for the files in a directory recursively:
# btrfs filesystem du --summarize /path/to/directory