Generic Block Device Capability

This file documents the sysfs file block/<disk>/capability.

capability is a bitfield, printed in hexadecimal, indicating which capabilities a specific block device supports:

genhd capability flags

GENHD_FL_REMOVABLE (0x0001): indicates that the block device gives access to removable media. When set, the device remains present even when media is not inserted. Must not be set for devices which are removed entirely when the media is removed.

GENHD_FL_CD (0x0008): the block device is a CD-ROM-style device. Affects responses to the CDROM_GET_CAPABILITY ioctl.

GENHD_FL_UP (0x0010): indicates that the block device is “up”, with a similar meaning to network interfaces.

GENHD_FL_SUPPRESS_PARTITION_INFO (0x0020): don’t include partition information in /proc/partitions or in the output of printk_all_partitions(). Used for the null block device and some MMC devices.

GENHD_FL_EXT_DEVT (0x0040): the driver supports extended dynamic dev_t, i.e. it wants extended device numbers (BLOCK_EXT_MAJOR). This affects the maximum number of partitions.

GENHD_FL_NATIVE_CAPACITY (0x0080): based on information in the partition table, the device’s capacity has been extended to its native capacity; i.e. the device has hidden capacity used by one of the partitions (this is a flag used so that native capacity is only ever unlocked once).

GENHD_FL_BLOCK_EVENTS_ON_EXCL_WRITE (0x0100): event polling is blocked whenever a writer holds an exclusive lock.

GENHD_FL_NO_PART_SCAN (0x0200): partition scanning is disabled. Used for loop devices in their default settings and some MMC devices.

GENHD_FL_HIDDEN (0x0400): the block device is hidden; it doesn’t produce events, doesn’t appear in sysfs, and doesn’t have an associated bdev. Implies GENHD_FL_SUPPRESS_PARTITION_INFO and GENHD_FL_NO_PART_SCAN. Used for multipath devices.