NVME-ID-NS(1)

NAME
nvme-id-ns - Send NVMe Identify Namespace, return result and structure

SYNOPSIS

nvme [<global-options>] id ns <device>
                        [--vendor-specific | -V]
                        [--raw-binary | -b]
                        [--namespace-id=<nsid> | -n <nsid>]
                        [--force]

DESCRIPTION

For the NVMe device given, sends an identify namespace command and provides the result and returned structure.

The <device> parameter is mandatory and may be either the NVMe character device (ex: /dev/nvme0), or a namespace block device (ex: /dev/nvme0n1). If the character device is given, the '--namespace-id' option is mandatory, otherwise it will use the ns-id of the namespace for the block device you opened. For block devices, the ns-id used can be overridden with the same option.

On success, the structure may be returned in one of several ways depending on the option flags; the structure may be parsed by the program or the raw buffer may be printed to stdout.

The bare nvme id-ns form (without a space) still works as a deprecated alias and will be removed in a future major version. New scripts should use nvme id ns instead.

OPTIONS

-n <nsid>, --namespace-id=<nsid>
    Retrieve the identify namespace structure for the given nsid. This is required for the character devices, or overrides the block nsid if given. If the controller supports namespace management capability and 0xFFFFFFFF is given, then the controller returns the identify namespace structure that specifies common capabilities across namespaces for the controller.

--force
    Request controller return the identify namespace structure even if the namespace is not attached to the controller. This is valid only for controllers at or newer than revision 1.2. Controllers at revision lower than this may interpret the command incorrectly.

-b, --raw-binary
    Print the raw buffer to stdout. Structure is not parsed by program. This overrides the vendor specific and human readable options.

-V, --vendor-specific
    In addition to parsing known fields, this option will dump the vendor specific region of the structure in hex with ascii interpretation.

GLOBAL OPTIONS

The following options are defined at the top-level nvme command and are available to this subcommand:

--dry-run
    Print the command that would be executed, but do not actually execute it.

--no-ioctl-probing
    Disable probing for 64-bit IOCTL support.

--no-retries
    Disable retry logic on transient errors.

-o <fmt>, --output-format=<fmt>
    Set the reporting format to normal, tabular, 'json, or binary. Only one output format may be used at a time.

--output-format-version=<version>
    Select the output format version. Version 1 uses the original field naming, while version 2 (default) provides more consistent and script-friendly field names.

--timeout=<ms>
    Set the timeout for the command in milliseconds.

-v, --verbose
    Increase the level of detail in the output. May be specified multiple times to further increase verbosity.

These options can also be set as machine-wide defaults in nvme-cli.conf(5). A command-line flag always overrides the file.

EXAMPLES

    • Has the program interpret the returned buffer and display the known fields in a human readable format:

        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0n1

    • If using the character device or overriding namespace id:

        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0 -n 1
        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0n1 -n 1
        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0 --namespace-id=1

    • In addition to showing the known fields, have the program to display the vendor unique field:

        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0n1 --vendor-specific
        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0n1 -V

    The above will dump the 'vs' buffer in hex since it doesn’t know how to interpret it.

    • Have the program return the raw structure in binary:

        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0n1 --raw-binary > id_ns.raw
        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0n1 -b > id_ns.raw

    It is probably a bad idea to not redirect stdout when using this mode.

    • Alternatively you may want to send the data to another program that can parse the raw buffer.

        # nvme id ns /dev/nvme0n1 --raw-binary | nvme_parse_id_ns

    The parse program in the above example can be a program that shows the structure in a way you like. The following program is such an example that will parse it and can accept the output through a pipe, '|', as shown in the above example, or you can 'cat' a saved output buffer to it.

    /* File: nvme_parse_id_ns.c */
    #include <linux/nvme.h>
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <unistd.h>
    int main(int argc, char **argv)
    {
            unsigned char buf[sizeof(struct nvme_id_ns)];
            struct nvme_id_ns *ns = (struct nvme_id_ns *)buf;
            if (read(STDIN_FILENO, buf, sizeof(buf)))
                    return 1;
            printf("nsze : %#llx\n", ns->nsze);
            printf("ncap : %#llx\n", ns->ncap);
            return 0;
    }

NVME

Part of the nvme-user suite