NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     getextattr - retrieve a named extended attribute

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     getextattr [-ls] attrnamespace attrname filename ...

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     getextattr is a user tool to retrieve a named  extended  attribute on a
     file or directory.  The attrnamespace argument should be the
namespace of
     the attribute to retrieve: legal values are "user" and "system".  The
     attrname  argument  should be the name of the attribute, and
filename a
     list of files and directories from  which  to  retrieve  attribute data.

     The following options are available:

     -l       Print attributes in the first column and file names
in the second.
  Can be used only in conjunction  with  the  -s
option.

     -s       Attempt  to display the attribute data as a string,
although the
             results may not look pretty if the  data  is  binary
data.  The
             strvisx(3)  function is used to generate the string,
so control
             sequences should be safely escaped.  Otherwise,  the
attribute data
  will be represented as a series of two-digit hex
numbers.

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES    [Toc]    [Back]

     In order for getextattr to succeed,  the  attribute  service
must be available
  on  the file system, and the attribute must be defined
for the file
     queried.

EXAMPLES    [Toc]    [Back]

           # getextattr system md5 /bsd
           /bsd:
             61 61 33 62 39 39 66 65    31 35 35 32 31 62 65 32
             62 36 38 36 62 31 66 39    63 64 33 39 35 36 36 31
           # getextattr -s system md5 /bsd
           /bsd: "aa3b99fe15521be2b686b1f9cd395661"

     Retrieve the ``md5'' extended attribute for the file /bsd.

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     extattr(2), extattr(3), extattrctl(8), setextattr(8), extattr(9)

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     Extended  attribute  support  was  developed  as part of the
TrustedBSD Project.
  It was developed to support security  extensions  requiring additional
  labels to be associated with each file or directory.

AUTHORS    [Toc]    [Back]

     Robert N M Watson

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The output format for this utility is ugly, and  worse  yet,
not very useful.


OpenBSD      3.6                          March      30,     2000