---
name: "frag"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "defrag"
version: "0.73pjm1-7"
release: "Debian 3.1 (Sarge)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/frag"
---

# frag(8)

simple fragmentation checker

## NAME

frag - simple fragmentation checker

## SYNOPSIS

**/sbin/frag** **\[ -l \] \[ -s \[ -s \]\]** filename ...

## DESCRIPTION

**frag** will report the file system fragmentation on a specified *filename*. If the *filename* is a directory, **frag** will recursively descend the directory.

## OPTIONS

- **-l**

  Long mode.  Lists the start and end blocks of all fragments of each file scanned.

- **-s**

  Silent (may be set to 1 or 2).  The first **-s** eliminates the file by file statistics, and just prints the  examined directories and a summary.  The second **-s** eliminates the printing of the directories, and just prints a summary.  This option is useful when **frag** is used on a directory.

## SEE ALSO

[**e2dump**(8)](/e2dump/8.md), **xdump**(8), [**defrag**(8)](/defrag/8.md), [**mkfs**(8)](/mkfs/8.md), [**fsck**(8)](/fsck/8.md), **mkefs**(8), **efsck**(8)

## BUGS

**frag** will get caught in an infinite loop in the /proc filesystem.

It is impossible to determine where a file's meta-data resides on disk simply by accessing the mounted file, so some apparent fragments reported by **frag** may be simply the result of low-level index blocks on disk.  The **e2dump** and **xdump** programs can interrogate a partition directly to access this data and to give more accurate results.

## AUTHORS

V1.0 by Werner Almesberger\
 V1.1 by Steffen Zahn, adding directory recursion\
 V1.2 by Rob Hooft, adding hole counts\
 V1.3 by Steffen Zahn, ignore symlinks, don't cross filesys borders, get filesystem block size at runtime\
 V1.4 by Stephen Tweedie, added indirect block support and improved statistic summaries.  Added "-l" switch.