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1 perry 1 MKFS
2 !!!MKFS
3 NAME
4 SYNOPSIS
5 DESCRIPTION
6 OPTIONS
7 BUGS
8 AUTHORS
9 SEE ALSO
10 ----
11 !!NAME
12
13
14 mkfs - build a Linux file system
15 !!SYNOPSIS
16
17
18 __mkfs__ [[ __-V__ ] [[ __-t__ ''fstype'' ] [[
19 __fs-options__ ] ''filesys'' [[ ''blocks''
20 ]
21 !!DESCRIPTION
22
23
24 __mkfs__ is used to build a Linux file system on a
25 device, usually a hard disk partition. ''filesys'' is
26 either the device name (e.g. ''/dev/hda1'',
27 ''/dev/sdb2'') or the mount point (e.g. ''/'',
28 ''/usr'', ''/home'') for the file system.
29 ''blocks'' is the number of blocks to be used for the
30 file system.
31
32
33 The exit code returned by __mkfs__ is 0 on success and 1
34 on failure.
35
36
37 In actuality, __mkfs__ is simply a front-end for the
38 various file system builders (__mkfs__.''fstype'')
39 available under Linux. The file system-specific builder is
40 searched for in a number of directories like perhaps
41 ''/sbin'', ''/sbin/fs'', ''/sbin/fs.d'',
42 ''/etc/fs'', ''/etc'' (the precise list is defined at
43 compile time but at least contains ''/sbin'' and
44 ''/sbin/fs''), and finally in the directories listed in
45 the PATH enviroment variable. Please see the file
46 system-specific builder manual pages for further
47 details.
48 !!OPTIONS
49
50
51 __-V__
52
53
54 Produce verbose output, including all file system-specific
55 commands that are executed. Specifying this option more than
56 once inhibits execution of any file system-specific
57 commands. This is really only useful for
58 testing.
59
60
61 __-t__ ''fstype''
62
63
64 Specifies the type of file system to be built. If not
65 specified, the default file system type (currently ext2) is
66 used.
67
68
69 __fs-options__
70
71
72 File system-specific options to be passed to the real file
73 system builder. Although not guaranteed, the following
74 options are supported by most file system
75 builders.
76
77
78 __-c__
79
80
81 Check the device for bad blocks before building the file
82 system.
83
84
85 __-l__ ''filename''
86
87
88 Read the bad blocks list from ''filename''
89
90
91 __-v__
92
93
94 Produce verbose output.
95 !!BUGS
96
97
98 All generic options must precede and not be combined with
99 file system-specific options. Some file system-specific
100 programs do not support the ''-v'' (verbose) option, nor
101 return meaningful exit codes. Also, some file
102 system-specific programs do not automatically detect the
103 device size and require the ''blocks'' parameter to be
104 specified.
105 !!AUTHORS
106
107
108 David Engel (david@ods.com)
109 Fred N. van Kempen (waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org)
110 Ron Sommeling (sommel@sci.kun.nl)
111 The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's
112 version for the ext2 file system.
113 !!SEE ALSO
114
115
116 fs(5), badblocks(8), fsck(8),
2 perry 117 mkdosfs(8), mke2fs(8), __mkfs.ext2__(8),
118 mkfs.minix(8), __mkfs.msdos__(8),
119 mkfs.xfs(8), __mkfs.xiafs__(8)
1 perry 120 ----
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