mkfs — build a Linux filesystem
mkfs [options] [
−t type ]
[fs−options] device [size]
This mkfs frontend is deprecated in favour of filesystem specific mkfs.<type> utils.
mkfs is used
to build a Linux filesystem on a device, usually a hard disk
partition. The device
argument is either the device name (e.g. /dev/hda1, /dev/sdb2), or a regular file that shall
contain the filesystem. The size argument is the number of
blocks to be used for the filesystem.
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 filesystem builders (mkfs.fstype) 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.
−t,
−−type typeSpecify the type of filesystem to be
built. If not specified, the default filesystem type
(currently ext2) is used.
fs-optionsFilesystem-specific options to be passed to the real filesystem builder.
−V,
−−verboseProduce 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.
−V,
−−versionDisplay version information and exit. (Option
−V will display
version information only when it is the only parameter,
otherwise it will work as −−verbose.)
−h,
−−helpDisplay help text and exit.
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 size
parameter to be specified.
David Engel (david@ods.com)
Fred N. van Kempen (waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org)
Ron Sommeling (sommel@sci.kun.nl)
The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's version for the ext2 filesystem.
fs(5), badblocks(8), fsck(8), mkdosfs(8), mke2fs(8), mkfs.bfs(8), mkfs.ext2(8), mkfs.ext3(8), mkfs.ext4(8), mkfs.minix(8), mkfs.msdos(8), mkfs.vfat(8), mkfs.xfs(8)