mkfs
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
NAME
mkfs - build a Linux file system
SYNOPSIS
mkfs [ -V ] [ -t fstype ] [ fs-options ] filesys [ blocks
]
DESCRIPTION
mkfs is used to build a Linux file system on a device,
usually a hard disk partition. filesys is either the
device name (e.g. /dev/hda1, /dev/sdb2) or the mount point
(e.g. /, /usr, /home) for the file system. blocks is the
number of blocks to be used for the file system.
The exit code returned by mkfs is 0 on success and 1 on
failure.
In actuality, mkfs is simply a front-end for the various
file system builders (mkfs.fstype) available under Linux.
The file system-specific builder is searched for in
/etc/fs first, then in /etc and finally in the directories
listed in the PATH enviroment variable. Please see the
file system-specific builder manual pages for further
details.
OPTIONS
-V Produce verbose output, including all file system-
specific commands that are executed. Specifying
this option more than once inhibits execution of
any file system-specific commands. This is really
only useful for testing.
-t fstype
Specifies the type of file system to be built. If
not specified, the type is deduced by searching for
filesys in /etc/fstab and using the corresponding
entry. If the type can not be deduced, the default
file system type (currently minix) is used.
fs-options
File system-specific options to be passed to the
real file system builder. Although not guaranteed,
the following options are supported by most file
system builders.
-c Check the device for bad blocks before building the
file system.
-l filename
Read the bad blocks list from filename
-v Produce verbose output.
BUGS
All generic options must precede and not be combined with
file system-specific options. Some file system-specific
programs do not support the -v (verbose) option, nor
return meaningful exit codes. Also, some file system-spe-
cific programs do not automatically detect the device size
and require the blocks parameter to be specified.
AUTHORS
David Engel (david@ods.com)
Fred N. van Kempen (waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org)
Ron Sommeling (sommel@sci.kun.nl)
The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's
version for the ext2 file system.
SEE ALSO
fsck(8), mkfs.minix(8), mkfs.ext(8), mkfs.ext2(8),
mkfs.xiafs(8).
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
Copyright (C) 1998
Hurricane Electric.
All Rights Reserved.