| .\" -*- nroff -*- |
| .TH MKFS 8 "Jun 1995" "Version 1.9" |
| .SH NAME |
| mkfs \- build a Linux file system |
| .SH SYNOPSIS |
| .B mkfs |
| .RB [ \-V ] |
| .RB [ \-t |
| .IR fstype ] |
| .RI [ fs-options ] |
| .I filesys |
| .RI [ blocks ] |
| .SH DESCRIPTION |
| .B mkfs |
| is used to build a Linux file system on a device, usually |
| a hard disk partition. |
| .I filesys |
| is either the device name (e.g. |
| .IR /dev/hda1 , |
| .IR /dev/sdb2 ), |
| or a regular file that shall contain the file system. |
| .I blocks |
| is the number of blocks to be used for the file system. |
| .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 file system builders |
| (\fBmkfs.\fIfstype\fR) |
| available under Linux. |
| The file system-specific builder is searched for in a number |
| of directories like perhaps |
| .IR /sbin , |
| .IR /sbin/fs , |
| .IR /sbin/fs.d , |
| .IR /etc/fs , |
| .I /etc |
| (the precise list is defined at compile time but at least |
| contains |
| .I /sbin |
| and |
| .IR /sbin/fs ), |
| and finally in the directories |
| listed in the PATH environment variable. |
| Please see the file system-specific builder manual pages for |
| further details. |
| .SH OPTIONS |
| .TP |
| .B -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. |
| .TP |
| .BI -t \ fstype |
| Specifies the type of file system to be built. |
| If not specified, the default file system type |
| (currently ext2) is used. |
| .TP |
| .I 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. |
| .TP |
| .B -c |
| Check the device for bad blocks before building the file system. |
| .TP |
| .BI -l \ filename |
| Read the bad blocks list from |
| .I filename |
| .TP |
| .B -v |
| Produce verbose output. |
| .SH BUGS |
| All generic options must precede and not be combined with |
| file system-specific options. |
| Some file system-specific programs do not support the |
| .I -v |
| (verbose) option, nor return meaningful exit codes. |
| Also, some file system-specific programs do not automatically |
| detect the device size and require the |
| .I blocks |
| 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 file system. |
| .SH SEE ALSO |
| .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.minix (8), |
| .BR mkfs.msdos (8), |
| .BR mkfs.vfat (8), |
| .BR mkfs.xfs (8), |
| .BR mkfs.xiafs (8) |
| .SH AVAILABILITY |
| The mkfs command is part of the util-linux-ng package and is available from |
| ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/. |
