.\" Copyright 2002 Urs Thuermann (urs@isnogud.escape.de) .\" and Copyright 2015 Michael Kerrisk .\" .\" %%%LICENSE_START(GPLv2+_DOC_FULL) .\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or .\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as .\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of .\" the License, or (at your option) any later version. .\" .\" The GNU General Public License's references to "object code" .\" and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any .\" document formatting or typesetting system, including .\" intermediate and printed output. .\" .\" This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, .\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the .\" GNU General Public License for more details. .\" .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public .\" License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free .\" Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, .\" USA. .\" %%%LICENSE_END .\" .TH LOOP 4 2019-03-06 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual" .SH NAME loop, loop-control \- loop devices .SH SYNOPSIS #include .SH DESCRIPTION The loop device is a block device that maps its data blocks not to a physical device such as a hard disk or optical disk drive, but to the blocks of a regular file in a filesystem or to another block device. This can be useful for example to provide a block device for a filesystem image stored in a file, so that it can be mounted with the .BR mount (8) command. You could do .PP .in +4n .EX $ \fBdd if=/dev/zero of=file.img bs=1MiB count=10\fP $ \fBsudo losetup /dev/loop4 file.img \fP $ \fBsudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/loop4\fP $ \fBsudo mkdir /myloopdev\fP $ \fBsudo mount /dev/loop4 /myloopdev\fP .EE .in .PP See .BR losetup (8) for another example. .PP A transfer function can be specified for each loop device for encryption and decryption purposes. .PP The following .BR ioctl (2) operations are provided by the loop block device: .TP .B LOOP_SET_FD Associate the loop device with the open file whose file descriptor is passed as the (third) .BR ioctl (2) argument. .TP .B LOOP_CLR_FD Disassociate the loop device from any file descriptor. .TP .B LOOP_SET_STATUS Set the status of the loop device using the (third) .BR ioctl (2) argument. This argument is a pointer to .I loop_info structure, defined in .I as: .IP .in +4n .EX struct loop_info { int lo_number; /* ioctl r/o */ dev_t lo_device; /* ioctl r/o */ unsigned long lo_inode; /* ioctl r/o */ dev_t lo_rdevice; /* ioctl r/o */ int lo_offset; int lo_encrypt_type; int lo_encrypt_key_size; /* ioctl w/o */ int lo_flags; /* ioctl r/o */ char lo_name[LO_NAME_SIZE]; unsigned char lo_encrypt_key[LO_KEY_SIZE]; /* ioctl w/o */ unsigned long lo_init[2]; char reserved[4]; }; .EE .in .IP The encryption type .RI ( lo_encrypt_type ) should be one of .BR LO_CRYPT_NONE , .BR LO_CRYPT_XOR , .BR LO_CRYPT_DES , .BR LO_CRYPT_FISH2 , .BR LO_CRYPT_BLOW , .BR LO_CRYPT_CAST128 , .BR LO_CRYPT_IDEA , .BR LO_CRYPT_DUMMY , .BR LO_CRYPT_SKIPJACK , or (since Linux 2.6.0) .BR LO_CRYPT_CRYPTOAPI . .IP The .I lo_flags field is a bit mask that can include zero or more of the following: .RS .TP .BR LO_FLAGS_READ_ONLY The loopback device is read-only. .TP .BR LO_FLAGS_AUTOCLEAR " (since Linux 2.6.25)" .\" commit 96c5865559cee0f9cbc5173f3c949f6ce3525581 The loopback device will autodestruct on last close. .TP .BR LO_FLAGS_PARTSCAN " (since Linux 3.2)" .\" commit e03c8dd14915fabc101aa495828d58598dc5af98 Allow automatic partition scanning. .RE .TP .B LOOP_GET_STATUS Get the status of the loop device. The (third) .BR ioctl (2) argument must be a pointer to a .IR "struct loop_info" . .TP .BR LOOP_CHANGE_FD " (since Linux 2.6.5)" Switch the backing store of the loop device to the new file identified file descriptor specified in the (third) .BR ioctl (2) argument, which is an integer. This operation is possible only if the loop device is read-only and the new backing store is the same size and type as the old backing store. .TP .BR LOOP_SET_CAPACITY " (since Linux 2.6.30)" .\" commit 53d6660836f233df66490707365ab177e5fb2bb4 Resize a live loop device. One can change the size of the underlying backing store and then use this operation so that the loop driver learns about the new size. This operation takes no argument. .PP Since Linux 2.6, there are two new .BR ioctl (2) operations: .TP .BR LOOP_SET_STATUS64 ", " LOOP_GET_STATUS64 These are similar to .BR LOOP_SET_STATUS " and " LOOP_GET_STATUS described above but use the .I loop_info64 structure, which has some additional fields and a larger range for some other fields: .IP .in +4n .EX struct loop_info64 { uint64_t lo_device; /* ioctl r/o */ uint64_t lo_inode; /* ioctl r/o */ uint64_t lo_rdevice; /* ioctl r/o */ uint64_t lo_offset; uint64_t lo_sizelimit;/* bytes, 0 == max available */ uint32_t lo_number; /* ioctl r/o */ uint32_t lo_encrypt_type; uint32_t lo_encrypt_key_size; /* ioctl w/o */ uint32_t lo_flags; /* ioctl r/o */ uint8_t lo_file_name[LO_NAME_SIZE]; uint8_t lo_crypt_name[LO_NAME_SIZE]; uint8_t lo_encrypt_key[LO_KEY_SIZE]; /* ioctl w/o */ uint64_t lo_init[2]; }; .EE .in .SS /dev/loop-control Since Linux 3.1, .\" commit 770fe30a46a12b6fb6b63fbe1737654d28e84844 the kernel provides the .I /dev/loop-control device, which permits an application to dynamically find a free device, and to add and remove loop devices from the system. To perform these operations, one first opens .IR /dev/loop-control and then employs one of the following .BR ioctl (2) operations: .TP .B LOOP_CTL_GET_FREE Allocate or find a free loop device for use. On success, the device number is returned as the result of the call. This operation takes no argument. .TP .B LOOP_CTL_ADD Add the new loop device whose device number is specified as a long integer in the third .BR ioctl (2) argument. On success, the device index is returned as the result of the call. If the device is already allocated, the call fails with the error .BR EEXIST . .TP .B LOOP_CTL_REMOVE Remove the loop device whose device number is specified as a long integer in the third .BR ioctl (2) argument. On success, the device number is returned as the result of the call. If the device is in use, the call fails with the error .BR EBUSY . .SH FILES .TP .IR /dev/loop* The loop block special device files. .SH EXAMPLE The program below uses the .I /dev/loop-control device to find a free loop device, opens the loop device, opens a file to be used as the underlying storage for the device, and then associates the loop device with the backing store. The following shell session demonstrates the use of the program: .PP .in +4n .EX $ \fBdd if=/dev/zero of=file.img bs=1MiB count=10\fP 10+0 records in 10+0 records out 10485760 bytes (10 MB) copied, 0.00609385 s, 1.7 GB/s $ \fBsudo ./mnt_loop file.img\fP loopname = /dev/loop5 .EE .in .SS Program source \& .EX #include #include #include #include #include #include #define errExit(msg) do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \e } while (0) int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int loopctlfd, loopfd, backingfile; long devnr; char loopname[4096]; if (argc != 2) { fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s backing\-file\en", argv[0]); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } loopctlfd = open("/dev/loop\-control", O_RDWR); if (loopctlfd == \-1) errExit("open: /dev/loop\-control"); devnr = ioctl(loopctlfd, LOOP_CTL_GET_FREE); if (devnr == \-1) errExit("ioctl\-LOOP_CTL_GET_FREE"); sprintf(loopname, "/dev/loop%ld", devnr); printf("loopname = %s\en", loopname); loopfd = open(loopname, O_RDWR); if (loopfd == \-1) errExit("open: loopname"); backingfile = open(argv[1], O_RDWR); if (backingfile == \-1) errExit("open: backing\-file"); if (ioctl(loopfd, LOOP_SET_FD, backingfile) == \-1) errExit("ioctl\-LOOP_SET_FD"); exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); } .EE .SH SEE ALSO .BR losetup (8), .BR mount (8) .SH COLOPHON This page is part of release 5.04 of the Linux .I man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at \%https://www.kernel.org/doc/man\-pages/.