---
name: "nvme-id-ctrl"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "nvme-cli"
version: "3.2-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/nvme-id-ctrl"
---

# nvme-id-ctrl(1)

Send NVMe Identify Controller, return result and structure

## NAME

nvme-id-ctrl - Send NVMe Identify Controller, return result and structure

## SYNOPSIS

```
nvme [<global-options>] id ctrl <device>
                        [--vendor-specific | -V]
                        [--raw-binary | -b]
```

## DESCRIPTION

For the NVMe device given, sends an identify controller command and provides the result and returned structure.

The \<device\> parameter is mandatory and may be either the NVMe character device (ex: /dev/nvme0), or a namespace block device (ex: /dev/nvme0n1).

On success, the structure may be returned in one of several ways depending on the option flags; the structure may be parsed by the program or the raw buffer may be printed to stdout.

The bare *nvme id-ctrl* form (without a space) still works as a deprecated alias and will be removed in a future major version. New scripts should use *nvme id ctrl* instead.

## OPTIONS

- \-b, --raw-binary

  Print the raw buffer to stdout. Structure is not parsed by program. This overrides the vendor specific and human readable options.

- \-V, --vendor-specific

  In addition to parsing known fields, this option will dump the vendor specific region of the structure in hex with ascii interpretation.

## GLOBAL OPTIONS

The following options are defined at the top-level nvme command and are available to this subcommand:

- \--dry-run

  Print the command that would be executed, but do not actually execute it.

- \--no-ioctl-probing

  Disable probing for 64-bit IOCTL support.

- \--no-retries

  Disable retry logic on transient errors.

- \-o \<fmt\>, --output-format=\<fmt\>

  Set the reporting format to *normal*, *tabular, 'json*, or *binary*. Only one output format may be used at a time.

- \--output-format-version=\<version\>

  Select the output format version. Version *1* uses the original field naming, while version *2* (default) provides more consistent and script-friendly field names. Other versions are rejected.

- \--quiet

  Suppress informational messages. Errors are still reported, and --quiet cancels any --verbose for the library log level.

- \--set-options=\<key=value\>\[,\<key=value\>...\]

  Set libnvme library options for this invocation. Supported keys are *force-4k*, *mi-probe-enabled*, *test-base-dir* and *test-sysfs-dir*.

- \--timeout=\<ms\>

  Set the timeout for the command in milliseconds. *infinite* or *-1* waits without a time limit (0xffffffff).

- \-v, --verbose

  Increase the level of detail in the output. May be specified multiple times to further increase verbosity.

These options can also be set as machine-wide defaults in [nvme-cli.conf(5)](/nvme-cli.conf/5.md). A command-line flag always overrides the file.

## EXAMPLES

• Has the program interpret the returned buffer and display the known fields in a human readable format:

```
# nvme id ctrl /dev/nvme0
```

• In addition to showing the known fields, has the program to display the vendor unique field:

```
# nvme id ctrl /dev/nvme0 --vendor-specific
# nvme id ctrl /dev/nvme0 -V
```

The above will dump the *vs* buffer in hex since it doesn’t know how to interpret it.

• Have the program return the raw structure in binary:

```
# nvme id ctrl /dev/nvme0 --raw-binary > id_ctrl.raw
# nvme id ctrl /dev/nvme0 -b > id_ctrl.raw
```

It is probably a bad idea to not redirect stdout when using this mode.

• Alternatively you may want to send the data to another program that can parse the raw buffer.

```
# nvme id ctrl /dev/nvme0 --raw-binary | nvme_parse_id_ctrl
```

The parse program in the above example can be a program that shows the structure in a way you like. The following program is such an example that will parse it and can accept the output through a pipe, '\|', as shown in the above example, or you can 'cat' a saved output buffer to it.

```
/* File: nvme_parse_id_ctrl.c */
#include <linux/nvme.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
        unsigned char buf[sizeof(struct nvme_id_ctrl)];
        struct nvme_id_ctrl *ctrl = (struct nvme_id_ctrl *)buf;
        if (read(STDIN_FILENO, buf, sizeof(buf)))
                return 1;
        printf("vid   : %#x\n", ctrl->vid);
        printf("ssvid : %#x\n", ctrl->ssvid);
        return 0;
}
```

## NVME

Part of the nvme-user suite