| .\" cfdisk.8 -- man page for cfdisk |
| .\" Copyright 1994 Kevin E. Martin (martin@cs.unc.edu) |
| .\" Copyright (C) 2014 Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com> |
| .\" |
| .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this |
| .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are |
| .\" preserved on all copies. |
| .\" |
| .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this |
| .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the |
| .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a |
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| .\" |
| .TH CFDISK 8 "March 2014" "util-linux" "System Administration" |
| .SH NAME |
| cfdisk \- display or manipulate a disk partition table |
| .SH SYNOPSIS |
| .B cfdisk |
| [options] |
| .RI [ device ] |
| .SH DESCRIPTION |
| .B cfdisk |
| is a curses-based program for partitioning any block device. |
| The default device is |
| .IR /dev/sda . |
| |
| Note that |
| .B cfdisk |
| provides basic partitioning functionality with a user-friendly interface. |
| If you need advanced features, use |
| .BR fdisk (8) |
| instead. |
| |
| Since version 2.25 |
| .B cfdisk |
| supports MBR (DOS), GPT, SUN and SGI disk labels, but no longer provides any |
| functionality for CHS (Cylinder-Head-Sector) addressing. CHS has |
| never been important for Linux, and this addressing concept does not make any |
| sense for new devices. |
| |
| Since version 2.25 |
| .B cfdisk |
| also does not provide a 'print' command any more. |
| This functionality is provided by the utilities |
| .BR partx (8) |
| and |
| .BR lsblk (8) |
| in a very comfortable and rich way. |
| |
| If you want to remove an old partition table from a device, use |
| .BR wipefs (8). |
| |
| .SH OPTIONS |
| .TP |
| .BR \-h , " \-\-help" |
| Display help text and exit. |
| .TP |
| .BR \-L , " \-\-color" [ = \fIwhen\fR] |
| Colorize the output. The optional argument \fIwhen\fP |
| can be \fBauto\fR, \fBnever\fR or \fBalways\fR. If the \fIwhen\fR argument is omitted, |
| it defaults to \fBauto\fR. The colors can be disabled, for the current built-in default |
| see \fB\-\-help\fR output. See also the COLORS section. |
| .TP |
| .BR \-V , " \-\-version" |
| Display version information and exit. |
| .TP |
| .BR \-z , " \-\-zero" |
| Start with an in-memory zeroed partition table. This option does not zero the |
| partition table on the disk; rather, it simply starts the program without |
| reading the existing partition table. This option allows you to create a new |
| partition table from scratch or from an sfdisk-compatible script. |
| |
| .SH COMMANDS |
| The commands for |
| .B cfdisk |
| can be entered by pressing the corresponding key (pressing |
| .I Enter |
| after the command is not necessary). Here is a list of the available |
| commands: |
| .TP |
| .B b |
| Toggle the bootable flag of the current partition. This allows you to |
| select which primary partition is bootable on the drive. This command may not |
| be available for all partition label types. |
| .TP |
| .B d |
| Delete the current partition. This will convert the current partition |
| into free space and merge it with any free space immediately |
| surrounding the current partition. A partition already marked as free |
| space or marked as unusable cannot be deleted. |
| .TP |
| .B h |
| Show the help screen. |
| .TP |
| .B n |
| Create a new partition from free space. |
| .B cfdisk |
| then prompts you for the size of the partition you want to create. |
| The default size is equal to the entire available free space at the current |
| position. |
| |
| The size may be followed by a multiplicative suffix: KiB (=1024), |
| MiB (=1024*1024), and so on for GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB |
| (the "iB" is optional, e.g. "K" has the same meaning as "KiB"). |
| .TP |
| .B q |
| Quit the program. This will exit the program without writing any data to |
| the disk. |
| .TP |
| .B s |
| Sort the partitions in ascending start-sector order. When deleting and |
| adding partitions, it is likely that the numbering of the partitions will |
| no longer match their order on the disk. This command restores that match. |
| .TP |
| .B t |
| Change the partition type. By default, new partitions are created as |
| .I Linux |
| partitions. |
| .TP |
| .B u |
| Dump the current in-memory partition table to an sfdisk-compatible script file. |
| .sp |
| The script files are compatible between \fBcfdisk\fR, \fBfdisk\fR, \fBsfdisk\fR |
| and other libfdisk applications. For more details see |
| .BR sfdisk (8). |
| .sp |
| It is also possible to load an sfdisk-script into \fBcfdisk\fR if there is |
| no partition table on the device or when you start \fBcfdisk\fR with the |
| \fB--zero\fR command-line option. |
| .TP |
| .B W |
| Write the partition table to disk (you must enter an uppercase W). Since |
| this might destroy data on the disk, you must either confirm or deny |
| the write by entering `yes' or `no'. If you enter `yes', |
| .B cfdisk |
| will write the partition table to disk and then tell the kernel to re-read the |
| partition table from the disk. |
| |
| The re-reading of the partition table does not always work. In such a |
| case you need to inform the kernel about any new partitions by using |
| .BR partprobe (8) |
| or |
| .BR partx (8), |
| or by rebooting the system. |
| .TP |
| .B x |
| Toggle extra information about a partition. |
| .TP |
| .IR "Up Arrow" , " Down Arrow" |
| Move the cursor to the previous or next partition. If there are more |
| partitions than can be displayed on a screen, you can display the next |
| (previous) set of partitions by moving down (up) at the last (first) |
| partition displayed on the screen. |
| .TP |
| .IR "Left Arrow" , " Right Arrow" |
| Select the preceding or the next menu item. Hitting \fIEnter\fR will |
| execute the currently selected item. |
| |
| .PP |
| All commands can be entered with either uppercase or lowercase |
| letters (except for |
| .BR W rite). |
| When in a submenu or at a prompt, you can hit the |
| .I Esc |
| key to return to the main menu. |
| |
| .SH COLORS |
| Implicit coloring can be disabled by creating the empty file |
| .IR /etc/terminal-colors.d/cfdisk.disable . |
| |
| See |
| .BR terminal-colors.d (5) |
| for more details about colorization configuration. |
| |
| .B cfdisk |
| does not support color customization with a color-scheme file. |
| |
| .SH ENVIRONMENT |
| .IP CFDISK_DEBUG=all |
| enables cfdisk debug output. |
| .IP LIBFDISK_DEBUG=all |
| enables libfdisk debug output. |
| .IP LIBBLKID_DEBUG=all |
| enables libblkid debug output. |
| .IP LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG=all |
| enables libsmartcols debug output. |
| .IP LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG_PADDING=on |
| use visible padding characters. Requires enabled LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG. |
| |
| .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| .BR fdisk (8), |
| .BR parted (8), |
| .BR partprobe (8), |
| .BR partx (8), |
| .BR sfdisk (8) |
| .SH AUTHOR |
| Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com> |
| .PP |
| The current cfdisk implementation is based on the original cfdisk |
| from Kevin E. Martin (martin@cs.unc.edu). |
| |
| .SH AVAILABILITY |
| The cfdisk command is part of the util-linux package and is available from |
| https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/. |