-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Print version and exit.
-c, --content
Consider only file content, not attributes, when determining whether two files are equal. Same as
-pot.
-b, --io-sizesize
The size of the read(2) or sendfile(2) buffer used when comparing file contents. The size argument
may be followed by the multiplicative suffixes KiB, MiB, etc. The "iB" is optional, e.g., "K" has the
same meaning as "KiB". The default is 8KiB for memcmp method and 1MiB for the other methods. The only
memcmp method uses process memory for the buffer, other methods use zero-copy way and I/O operation
is done in the kernel. The size may be altered on the fly to fit a number of cached content
checksums.
-d, --respect-dir
Only try to link files with the same directory name. The top-level directory (as specified on the
hardlink command line) is ignored. For example, hardlink--respect-dir/foo/bar will link
/foo/some/file with /bar/some/file, but not /bar/other/file. If combined with --respect-name, then
entire paths (except the top-level directory) are compared.
-f, --respect-name
Only try to link files with the same (base)name. It’s strongly recommended to use long options rather
than -f which is interpreted in a different way by other hardlink implementations.
-i, --includeregex
A regular expression to include files. If the option --exclude has been given, this option
re-includes files which would otherwise be excluded. If the option is used without --exclude, only
files matched by the pattern are included.
-m, --maximize
Among equal files, keep the file with the highest link count.
-M, --minimize
Among equal files, keep the file with the lowest link count.
-n, --dry-run
Do not act, just print what would happen.
-o, --ignore-owner
Link and compare files even if their owner information (user and group) differs. Results may be
unpredictable.
-O, --keep-oldest
Among equal files, keep the oldest file (least recent modification time). By default, the newest file
is kept. If --maximize or --minimize is specified, the link count has a higher precedence than the
time of modification.
-p, --ignore-mode
Link and compare files even if their mode is different. Results may be slightly unpredictable.
-q, --quiet
Quiet mode, don’t print anything.
-r, --cache-sizesize
The size of the cache for content checksums. All non-memcmp methods calculate checksum for each file
content block (see --io-size), these checksums are cached for the next comparison. The size is
important for large files or a large sets of files of the same size. The default is 10MiB.
-s, --minimum-sizesize
The minimum size to consider. By default this is 1, so empty files will not be linked. The size
argument may be followed by the multiplicative suffixes KiB (=1024), MiB (=1024*1024), and so on for
GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g., "K" has the same meaning as "KiB").
-S, --maximum-sizesize
The maximum size to consider. By default this is 0 and 0 has the special meaning of unlimited. The
size argument may be followed by the multiplicative suffixes KiB (=1024), MiB (=1024*1024), and so on
for GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g., "K" has the same meaning as "KiB").
-t, --ignore-time
Link and compare files even if their time of modification is different. This is usually a good
choice.
-v, --verbose
Verbose output, explain to the user what is being done. If specified once, every hardlinked file is
displayed. If specified twice, it also shows every comparison.
-x, --excluderegex
A regular expression which excludes files from being compared and linked.
-X, --respect-xattrs
Only try to link files with the same extended attributes.
-y, --methodname
Set the file content comparison method. The currently supported methods are sha256, sha1, crc32c and
memcmp. The default is sha256, or memcmp if Linux Crypto API is not available. The methods based on
checksums are implemented in zero-copy way, in this case file contents are not copied to the
userspace and all calculation is done in kernel.
--reflink[=when]
Create copy-on-write clones (aka reflinks) rather than hardlinks. The reflinked files share only
on-disk data, but the file mode and owner can be different. It’s recommended to use it with
--ignore-owner and --ignore-mode options. This option implies --skip-reflinks to ignore already
cloned files.
The optional argument when can be never, always, or auto. If the when argument is omitted, it
defaults to auto, in this case, hardlink checks filesystem type and uses reflinks on BTRFS and XFS
only, and fallback to hardlinks when creating reflink is impossible. The argument always disables
filesystem type detection and fallback to hardlinks, in this case, only reflinks are allowed.
--skip-reflinks
Ignore already cloned files. This option may be used without --reflink when creating classic
hardlinks.
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