| .TH MKFS 8 "June 2011" "util-linux" "System Administration" |
| .SH NAME |
| mkfs \- build a Linux filesystem |
| .SH SYNOPSIS |
| .B mkfs |
| [options] |
| .RB [ \-t |
| .IR type "] [" fs-options ] " device " [ size ] |
| .SH DESCRIPTION |
| .B This mkfs frontend is deprecated in favour of filesystem specific mkfs.<type> utils. |
| .PP |
| .B mkfs |
| is used to build a Linux filesystem on a device, usually |
| a hard disk partition. The |
| .I device |
| argument is either the device name (e.g. |
| .IR /dev/hda1 , |
| .IR /dev/sdb2 ), |
| or a regular file that shall contain the filesystem. The |
| .I size |
| argument is the number of blocks to be used for the filesystem. |
| .PP |
| The exit code returned by |
| .B mkfs |
| is 0 on success and 1 on failure. |
| .PP |
| In actuality, |
| .B mkfs |
| is simply a front-end for the various filesystem builders |
| (\fBmkfs.\fIfstype\fR) |
| available under Linux. |
| The filesystem-specific builder is searched for via your PATH |
| environment setting only. |
| Please see the filesystem-specific builder manual pages for |
| further details. |
| .SH OPTIONS |
| .TP |
| .BR \-t , " \-\-type " \fItype\fR |
| Specify the \fItype\fR of filesystem to be built. |
| If not specified, the default filesystem type |
| (currently ext2) is used. |
| .TP |
| .I fs-options |
| Filesystem-specific options to be passed to the real filesystem builder. |
| .TP |
| .BR \-V , " \-\-verbose" |
| Produce verbose output, including all filesystem-specific commands |
| that are executed. |
| Specifying this option more than once inhibits execution of any |
| filesystem-specific commands. |
| This is really only useful for testing. |
| .TP |
| .BR \-V , " \-\-version" |
| Display version information and exit. (Option \fB\-V\fR will display |
| version information only when it is the only parameter, otherwise it |
| will work as \fB\-\-verbose\fR.) |
| .TP |
| .BR \-h , " \-\-help" |
| Display help text and exit. |
| .SH BUGS |
| All generic options must precede and not be combined with |
| filesystem-specific options. |
| Some filesystem-specific programs do not automatically |
| detect the device size and require the |
| .I size |
| parameter to be specified. |
| .SH AUTHORS |
| David Engel (david@ods.com) |
| .br |
| Fred N.\& van Kempen (waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org) |
| .br |
| Ron Sommeling (sommel@sci.kun.nl) |
| .br |
| The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's version |
| for the ext2 filesystem. |
| .SH SEE ALSO |
| .na |
| .BR fs (5), |
| .BR badblocks (8), |
| .BR fsck (8), |
| .BR mkdosfs (8), |
| .BR mke2fs (8), |
| .BR mkfs.bfs (8), |
| .BR mkfs.ext2 (8), |
| .BR mkfs.ext3 (8), |
| .BR mkfs.ext4 (8), |
| .BR mkfs.minix (8), |
| .BR mkfs.msdos (8), |
| .BR mkfs.vfat (8), |
| .BR mkfs.xfs (8) |
| .ad |
| .SH AVAILABILITY |
| The mkfs command is part of the util-linux package and is available from |
| https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/. |