disk-utils/mkfs.8

   1 .TH MKFS 8 "June 2011" "util-linux" "System Administration"
   2 .SH NAME
   3 mkfs \- build a Linux filesystem
   4 .SH SYNOPSIS
   5 .B mkfs
   6 [options]
   7 .RB [ \-t
   8 .IR type "] [" fs-options ] " device " [ size ]
   9 .SH DESCRIPTION
  10 .B This mkfs frontend is deprecated in favour of filesystem specific mkfs.<type> utils.
  11 .PP
  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 via your PATH
  33 environment setting only.
  34 Please see the filesystem-specific builder manual pages for
  35 further details.
  36 .SH OPTIONS
  37 .TP
  38 .BR \-t , " \-\-type " \fItype\fR
  39 Specify the \fItype\fR of filesystem to be built.
  40 If not specified, the default filesystem type
  41 (currently ext2) is used.
  42 .TP
  43 .I fs-options
  44 Filesystem-specific options to be passed to the real filesystem builder.
  45 .TP
  46 .BR \-V , " \-\-verbose"
  47 Produce verbose output, including all filesystem-specific commands
  48 that are executed.
  49 Specifying this option more than once inhibits execution of any
  50 filesystem-specific commands.
  51 This is really only useful for testing.
  52 .TP
  53 .BR \-V , " \-\-version"
  54 Display version information and exit.  (Option \fB\-V\fR will display
  55 version information only when it is the only parameter, otherwise it
  56 will work as \fB\-\-verbose\fR.)
  57 .TP
  58 .BR \-h , " \-\-help"
  59 Display help text and exit.
  60 .SH BUGS
  61 All generic options must precede and not be combined with
  62 filesystem-specific options.
  63 Some filesystem-specific programs do not automatically
  64 detect the device size and require the
  65 .I size
  66 parameter to be specified.
  67 .SH AUTHORS
  68 David Engel (david@ods.com)
  69 .br
  70 Fred N.\& van Kempen (waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org)
  71 .br
  72 Ron Sommeling (sommel@sci.kun.nl)
  73 .br
  74 The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's version
  75 for the ext2 filesystem.
  76 .SH SEE ALSO
  77 .na
  78 .BR fs (5),
  79 .BR badblocks (8),
  80 .BR fsck (8),
  81 .BR mkdosfs (8),
  82 .BR mke2fs (8),
  83 .BR mkfs.bfs (8),
  84 .BR mkfs.ext2 (8),
  85 .BR mkfs.ext3 (8),
  86 .BR mkfs.ext4 (8),
  87 .BR mkfs.minix (8),
  88 .BR mkfs.msdos (8),
  89 .BR mkfs.vfat (8),
  90 .BR mkfs.xfs (8)
  91 .ad
  92 .SH AVAILABILITY
  93 The mkfs command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
  94 https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.