man > btrfs-receive(8)

BTRFS-RECEIVE(8)                                BTRFS                               BTRFS-RECEIVE(8)

NAME
       btrfs-receive - receive subvolumes from send stream

SYNOPSIS
       btrfs receive [options] <path>

       or

       btrfs receive --dump [options]

DESCRIPTION
       Receive  a stream of changes and replicate one or more subvolumes that were previously gener‐
       ated by btrfs send. The received subvolumes are stored  to  path,  unless  --dump  option  is
       given.

       If  --dump  option is specified, btrfs receive will only do the validation of the stream, and
       print the stream metadata, one operation per line.

       btrfs receive will fail in the following cases:

       1. receiving subvolume already exists

       2. previously received subvolume has been changed after it was received

       3. default subvolume has changed or you didn't mount the filesystem at the toplevel subvolume

       A subvolume is made read-only after the receiving process finishes successfully (see BUGS be‐
       low).

       Options

       -f <FILE>
              read the stream from FILE instead of stdin,

       -C|--chroot
              confine the process to path using chroot(1)

       -e     terminate after receiving an end cmd marker in the stream.

              Without this option the receiver side terminates only in case of an error  on  end  of
              file.

       -E|--max-errors <NERR>
              terminate  as  soon  as  NERR  errors  occur while stream processing commands from the
              stream

              Default value is 1. A value of 0 means no limit.

       -m <ROOTMOUNT>
              the root mount point of the destination filesystem

              By default the mount point is searched in :file:/proc/self/mounts`.  If /proc  is  not
              accessible,  e.g.  in  a  chroot  environment,  use  this option to tell us where this
              filesystem is mounted.

       --force-decompress
              if the stream contains compressed data (see --compressed-data in  btrfs-send(8)),  al‐
              ways decompress it instead of writing it with encoded I/O

       --dump dump the stream metadata, one line per operation

              Does not require the path parameter. The filesystem remains unchanged.

       -q|--quiet
              (deprecated) alias for global -q option

       -v     (deprecated) alias for global -v option

       Global options

       -v|--verbose
              increase verbosity about performed actions, print details about each operation

       -q|--quiet
              suppress all messages except errors

BUGS
       btrfs  receive  sets the subvolume read-only after it completes successfully.  However, while
       the receive is in progress, users who have write access to files or directories  in  the  re‐
       ceiving  path can add, remove, or modify files, in which case the resulting read-only subvol‐
       ume will not be an exact copy of the sent subvolume.

       If the intention is to create an exact copy, the receiving path should be protected from  ac‐
       cess  by  users  until  the  receive  operation  has  completed  and  the subvolume is set to
       read-only.

       Additionally, receive does not currently do a very good job of validating that an incremental
       send stream actually makes sense, and it is thus possible for a specially crafted send stream
       to create a subvolume with reflinks to arbitrary files in the same  filesystem.   Because  of
       this,  users are advised to not use btrfs receive on send streams from untrusted sources, and
       to protect trusted streams when sending them across untrusted networks.

EXIT STATUS
       btrfs receive returns a zero exit status if it succeeds. Non zero  is  returned  in  case  of
       failure.

AVAILABILITY
       btrfs    is    part    of    btrfs-progs.     Please    refer   to   the   documentation   at
       https://btrfs.readthedocs.io.

SEE ALSO
       btrfs-send(8), mkfs.btrfs(8)


6.6.3                                       Mar 31, 2024                            BTRFS-RECEIVE(8)