disk-utils/mkfs.8

   1 .\" -*- nroff -*-
   2 .TH MKFS 8 "June 2011" "util-linux" "System Administration"
   3 .SH NAME
   4 mkfs \- build a Linux filesystem
   5 .SH SYNOPSIS
   6 .B mkfs
   7 [options]
   8 .RB [ \-t
   9 .IR type "] [" fs-options ] " device " [ size ]
  10 .SH DESCRIPTION
  11 .B This mkfs frontend is deprecated in favour of filesystem specific mkfs.<type> utils.
  12 .PP
  13 .B mkfs
  14 is used to build a Linux filesystem on a device, usually
  15 a hard disk partition.  The
  16 .I device
  17 argument is either the device name (e.g.
  18 .IR /dev/hda1 ,
  19 .IR /dev/sdb2 ),
  20 or a regular file that shall contain the filesystem.  The
  21 .I size
  22 argument is the number of blocks to be used for the filesystem.
  23 .PP
  24 The exit code returned by
  25 .B mkfs
  26 is 0 on success and 1 on failure.
  27 .PP
  28 In actuality,
  29 .B mkfs
  30 is simply a front-end for the various filesystem builders
  31 (\fBmkfs.\fIfstype\fR)
  32 available under Linux.
  33 The filesystem-specific builder is searched for in a number
  34 of directories, like perhaps
  35 .IR /sbin ,
  36 .IR /sbin/fs ,
  37 .IR /sbin/fs.d ,
  38 .IR /etc/fs ,
  39 .I /etc
  40 (the precise list is defined at compile time but at least
  41 contains
  42 .I /sbin
  43 and
  44 .IR /sbin/fs ),
  45 and finally in the directories
  46 listed in the PATH environment variable.
  47 Please see the filesystem-specific builder manual pages for
  48 further details.
  49 .SH OPTIONS
  50 .TP
  51 .BR \-t , " \-\-type " \fItype\fR
  52 Specify the \fItype\fR of filesystem to be built.
  53 If not specified, the default filesystem type
  54 (currently ext2) is used.
  55 .TP
  56 .I fs-options
  57 Filesystem-specific options to be passed to the real filesystem builder.
  58 .TP
  59 .BR \-V , " \-\-verbose"
  60 Produce verbose output, including all filesystem-specific commands
  61 that are executed.
  62 Specifying this option more than once inhibits execution of any
  63 filesystem-specific commands.
  64 This is really only useful for testing.
  65 .TP
  66 .BR \-V , " \-\-version"
  67 Display version information and exit.  (Option \fB\-V\fR will display
  68 version information only when it is the only parameter, otherwise it
  69 will work as \fB\-\-verbose\fR.)
  70 .TP
  71 .BR \-h , " \-\-help"
  72 Display help text and exit.
  73 .SH BUGS
  74 All generic options must precede and not be combined with
  75 filesystem-specific options.
  76 Some filesystem-specific programs do not automatically
  77 detect the device size and require the
  78 .I size
  79 parameter to be specified.
  80 .SH AUTHORS
  81 David Engel (david@ods.com)
  82 .br
  83 Fred N.\& van Kempen (waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org)
  84 .br
  85 Ron Sommeling (sommel@sci.kun.nl)
  86 .br
  87 The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's version
  88 for the ext2 filesystem.
  89 .SH SEE ALSO
  90 .na
  91 .BR fs (5),
  92 .BR badblocks (8),
  93 .BR fsck (8),
  94 .BR mkdosfs (8),
  95 .BR mke2fs (8),
  96 .BR mkfs.bfs (8),
  97 .BR mkfs.ext2 (8),
  98 .BR mkfs.ext3 (8),
  99 .BR mkfs.ext4 (8),
 100 .BR mkfs.minix (8),
 101 .BR mkfs.msdos (8),
 102 .BR mkfs.vfat (8),
 103 .BR mkfs.xfs (8)
 104 .ad
 105 .SH AVAILABILITY
 106 The mkfs command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
 107 ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.