nvme

NVMe storage command line interface utility

TLDR

List all NVMe devices

$ sudo nvme list

Show controller identification

$ sudo nvme id-ctrl [/dev/nvme0]

Show namespace identification

$ sudo nvme id-ns [/dev/nvme0n1]

Show SMART health information

$ sudo nvme smart-log [/dev/nvme0]

Show error log entries

$ sudo nvme error-log [/dev/nvme0]

Format a namespace (destroys all data)

$ sudo nvme format [/dev/nvme0n1]

Download firmware to a device

$ sudo nvme fw-download [/dev/nvme0] --fw=[firmware.bin]

Run a device self-test

$ sudo nvme device-self-test [/dev/nvme0] --stc=[1]

SYNOPSIS

nvme command [device] [options]

nvme is a user space utility providing standards-compliant tooling for NVM-Express (NVMe) drives on Linux. It has subcommands for all admin and I/O commands defined in the NVMe specification, as well as commands for displaying controller registers and retrieving various log pages.The utility supports NVMe-over-Fabrics operations including discovery, connect, and disconnect for remote NVMe subsystems. It can also submit completely arbitrary vendor-specific commands via passthrough.All commands return 0 on success and 1 on failure.

PARAMETERS

list

List all NVMe devices and namespaces.

id-ctrl DEVICE

Send an identify controller command and display the result.

id-ns DEVICE

Send an identify namespace command and display the result.

smart-log DEVICE

Retrieve SMART / health information log.

error-log DEVICE

Retrieve error information log.

fw-log DEVICE

Retrieve firmware slot information log.

format DEVICE

Format namespace(s) with specified LBA format.

fw-download DEVICE

Download firmware image to the device.

fw-activate DEVICE

Activate a downloaded firmware image.

sanitize DEVICE

Perform a sanitize operation (secure erase).

device-self-test DEVICE

Run a device self-test (short or extended).

get-feature DEVICE

Get a feature value from the controller.

set-feature DEVICE

Set a feature value on the controller.

discover

Discover NVMe-over-Fabrics subsystems.

connect DEVICE

Connect to an NVMe-over-Fabrics controller.

help COMMAND

Display help for a specific subcommand.

INSTALL

sudo apt install nvme-cli

sudo dnf install nvme-cli

sudo pacman -S nvme-cli

sudo apk add nvme-cli

sudo zypper install nvme-cli

nix profile install nixpkgs#nvme-cli

CAVEATS

Root privileges are required for most operations. The format and sanitize commands destroy all data on the device and are irreversible. The sanitize command cannot be aborted once started. NVMe-over-Fabrics commands require appropriate kernel modules.

HISTORY

nvme-cli is developed as an open-source project under the Linux NVMe project at https://github.com/linux-nvme/nvme-cli. It relies on Linux kernel NVMe IOCTLs and is Linux-specific.