How To See Characteristics of File Systems on Linux or Unix

How do I display the characteristics of file systems such as inodes, blocks, block size, file system name, state, lifetime writes, fsck status and more on Linux or Unix-like operating system?

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	Yes
Requirements	Linux and Unix OS
Est. reading time	2m

You can use any one of the following command as per your Linux or Unix variant:

• tune2fs command
• lsfs command
• fstyp command
• df command

Linux command to show file system characteristics

Pass the -l option to list the contents of the filesystem superblock, including the current values of the parameters that can be set via tune2fs command. Type the following command:
# tune2fs -l /path/to/device | more
# tune2fs -l /dev/sda2 | grep
# tune2fs -l /dev/cciss/c1d1p1
# tune2fs -l /dev/mapper/data
Sample outputs:

You can use grep command to filter out information. For example, to see lifetime writes on ext4 filesystem, enter:
# tune2fs -l /dev/md0 | grep 'writes'
Sample outputs:

Lifetime writes:          90 GB

Please note that above commands works on on ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystems under Linux only. Hence for xfs, we need to use the following commands.

Linux displaing XFS filesystem geometry information

The xfs_info command shows geometry information about an existing XFS filesystem. The mount-point argument is the pathname of a directory where the filesystem is mounted. For instance if /dev/xdvf mounted as follows on AWS EC2 VM, we run:
$ sudo xfs_info /backup/
Here is what we see:

meta-data=/dev/xvdf              isize=512    agcount=4, agsize=26214400 blks
         =                       sectsz=512   attr=2, projid32bit=1
         =                       crc=1        finobt=1, sparse=1, rmapbt=0
         =                       reflink=0
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=104857600, imaxpct=25
         =                       sunit=0      swidth=0 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0, ftype=1
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=51200, version=2
         =                       sectsz=512   sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0

The block-device or file-image contain a raw XFS filesystem as follows (unmounted XFS file systems):
$ sudo xfs_info /dev/xvdf

HP-UX Unix specific command to see characteristics of file systems

The fstyp command allows the user to determine the file system type of a mounted or unmounted file system. You need to pass special a device special file such as /dev/dsk/c1t6d0 and -v option to see information about the file system’s superblock.
# fstyp -v /dev/vg02/lvol2
# fstyp -v /dev/dsk/c1t6d0 | more
# df -g /dev/vg02/lvol2
The ‘df -g‘ command the entire structure of the file system.

Displaying the characteristics of file systems on Solaris Unix

Type the following command:
# fstyp -v /dev/md/dsk/d200
# fstyp -v /dev/md/dsk/d200 | more
# df -g /dev/md/dsk/d200

AIX unix specific command

The lsfs command displays characteristics of file systems, such as mount points, automatic mounts, permissions, and file system size. The FileSystem parameter reports on a specific file system:
# lsfs -q /dev/hd10admin
# lsfs -q / | more

Summing up

We explained various Linux and Unix command show your servers file system characteristics.

Category	List of Unix and Linux commands
Disk space analyzers	ncdu • pydf
File Management	cat
Firewall	Alpine Awall • CentOS 8 • OpenSUSE • RHEL 8 • Ubuntu 16.04 • Ubuntu 18.04 • Ubuntu 20.04
Network Utilities	NetHogs • dig • host • ip • nmap
OpenVPN	CentOS 7 • CentOS 8 • Debian 10 • Debian 8/9 • Ubuntu 18.04 • Ubuntu 20.04
Package Manager	apk • apt
Processes Management	bg • chroot • cron • disown • fg • jobs • killall • kill • pidof • pstree • pwdx • time
Searching	grep • whereis • which
User Information	groups • id • lastcomm • last • lid/libuser-lid • logname • members • users • whoami • who • w
WireGuard VPN	Alpine • CentOS 8 • Debian 10 • Firewall • Ubuntu 20.04