Blixt Documentation v2.9

Extended attributes

The bfs.* extended attributes that expose object details and control consistency checks, and how your own extended attributes are stored.

Read extended attributes with getfattr on Linux:

getfattr -n bfs.object_url /mnt/blixt/aws/my-bucket/report.pdf

Object information (read-only)

Available on every file, for every provider:

Attribute Value
bfs.cloud The provider, such as aws or gcp
bfs.object_bucket The bucket name
bfs.object_key The object key
bfs.object_name The object’s name
bfs.object_path The object’s path
bfs.object_url The object’s URL, such as s3://my-bucket/report.pdf
bfs.object_generation The object version BlixtFS is serving
bfs.object_hash_crc32c The object’s CRC32C checksum, where the provider supplies one
bfs.object_hash_md5 The object’s MD5 checksum, where the provider supplies one

Provider-specific:

Attribute Providers
bfs.object_metageneration Google Cloud Storage
bfs.object_etag S3, Azure, Oracle, MinIO, Cloudflare R2
bfs.object_creation_time S3, Azure, Oracle, MinIO, Cloudflare R2
bfs.object_generation_hash S3, Azure, Oracle, MinIO, Cloudflare R2

Controls (read-write)

Attribute Meaning
bfs.fsck_request Write to request a consistency check of this file or directory. See Consistency checks.
bfs.fsck The consistency-check status summary. It also accepts a request, for callers written before bfs.fsck_request.
bfs.fsck_state, bfs.fsck_issues, bfs.fsck_changes, bfs.fsck_duration_seconds, bfs.fsck_not_before, bfs.fsck_error Consistency-check status (read-only)
bfs.freshness How this bucket learns about changes made outside BlixtFS: live notifications, a periodic rescan, or neither (read-only)
bfs.replication The file’s replication factor in the read cache. (scale-out)

Your own extended attributes

Extended attributes you set on files, such as user.origin, are stored with the file in the index and on the object as object metadata. They therefore survive a rebuild of the index and are visible to other tools. Providers limit how much metadata an object can carry, so BlixtFS refuses an extended attribute that would exceed the provider’s limit.