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 .SH SYNOPSIS
   7 .B mkfs
   8 .RI [ options ]
   9 .RB [ \-t
  10 .IR "type fs-options" ] " device " [ size ]
  11 .SH DESCRIPTION
  12 .B mkfs
  13 is used to build a Linux filesystem on a device, usually
  14 a hard disk partition.  The
  15 .I device
  16 argument is either the device name (e.g.
  17 .IR /dev/hda1 ,
  18 .IR /dev/sdb2 ),
  19 or a regular file that shall contain the filesystem.  The
  20 .I size
  21 argument is the number of blocks to be used for the filesystem.
  22 .PP
  23 The exit code returned by
  24 .B mkfs
  25 is 0 on success and 1 on failure.
  26 .PP
  27 In actuality,
  28 .B mkfs
  29 is simply a front-end for the various filesystem builders
  30 (\fBmkfs.\fIfstype\fR)
  31 available under Linux.
  32 The filesystem-specific builder is searched for in a number
  33 of directories, like perhaps
  34 .IR /sbin ,
  35 .IR /sbin/fs ,
  36 .IR /sbin/fs.d ,
  37 .IR /etc/fs ,
  38 .I /etc
  39 (the precise list is defined at compile time but at least
  40 contains
  41 .I /sbin
  42 and
  43 .IR /sbin/fs ),
  44 and finally in the directories
  45 listed in the PATH environment variable.
  46 Please see the filesystem-specific builder manual pages for
  47 further details.
  48 .SH OPTIONS
  49 .TP
  50 .BR \-t , " \-\-type " \fItype\fR
  51 Specify the \fItype\fR of filesystem to be built.
  52 If not specified, the default filesystem type
  53 (currently ext2) is used.
  54 .TP
  55 .I fs-options
  56 Filesystem-specific options to be passed to the real filesystem builder.
  57 Although not guaranteed, the following options are supported
  58 by most filesystem builders.
  59 .TP
  60 .BR \-V , " \-\-verbose"
  61 Produce verbose output, including all filesystem-specific commands
  62 that are executed.
  63 Specifying this option more than once inhibits execution of any
  64 filesystem-specific commands.
  65 This is really only useful for testing.
  66 .TP
  67 .BR \-V , " \-\-version"
  68 Display version information and exit.  (Option \fB\-V\fR will display
  69 version information only when it is the only parameter, otherwise it
  70 will work as \fB\-\-verbose\fR.)
  71 .TP
  72 .BR \-h , " \-\-help"
  73 Display help and exit.
  74 .SH BUGS
  75 All generic options must precede and not be combined with
  76 filesystem-specific options.
  77 Some filesystem-specific programs do not support the
  78 .B -V
  79 (verbose) option, nor return meaningful exit codes.
  80 Also, some filesystem-specific programs do not automatically
  81 detect the device size and require the
  82 .I size
  83 parameter to be specified.
  84 .SH AUTHORS
  85 David Engel (david@ods.com)
  86 .br
  87 Fred N. van Kempen (waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org)
  88 .br
  89 Ron Sommeling (sommel@sci.kun.nl)
  90 .br
  91 The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's version
  92 for the ext2 filesystem.
  93 .SH SEE ALSO
  94 .BR fs (5),
  95 .BR badblocks (8),
  96 .BR fsck (8),
  97 .BR mkdosfs (8),
  98 .BR mke2fs (8),
  99 .BR mkfs.bfs (8),
 100 .BR mkfs.ext2 (8),
 101 .BR mkfs.ext3 (8),
 102 .BR mkfs.ext4 (8),
 103 .BR mkfs.minix (8),
 104 .BR mkfs.msdos (8),
 105 .BR mkfs.vfat (8),
 106 .BR mkfs.xfs (8),
 107 .BR mkfs.xiafs (8)
 108 .SH AVAILABILITY
 109 The mkfs command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
 110 ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.