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 a num
ber of directories like perhaps /sbin, /sbin/fs,
/sbin/fs.d, /etc/fs, /etc (the precise list is defined at
compile time but at least contains /sbin and /sbin/fs),
and finally in the directories listed in the PATH enviro
ment 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 default file system type (cur
rently ext2) 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.
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
fs(5), badblocks(8), fsck(8), mkdosfs(8), mke2fs(8),
mkfs.ext2(8), mkfs.minix(8), mkfs.msdos(8), mkfs.xfs(8),
mkfs.xiafs(8)
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