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mkfs ? build a Linux file system |
mkfs [ ?V ] [ ?t fstype ] [ fs-options ] filesys [ blocks ] |
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 number 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 enviroment variable. Please see the file system-specific builder manual pages for further details. |
-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 (currently 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-specific programs do not automatically detect the device size and require the blocks parameter to be specified. |
David Engel (david@ods.com) |
fs(5), badblocks(8), fsck(8), mkdosfs(8), mke2fs(8), mkfs.ext2(8), mkfs.minix(8), mkfs.msdos(8), mkfs.xiafs(8) |