MKFS(8)                                                                                                                  MKFS(8)



NAME
       mkfs - build a Linux file system

SYNOPSIS
       mkfs [-V] [-t fstype] [fs-options] filesys [blocks]

DESCRIPTION
       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 a regular file that shall contain 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 environment variable.  Please see the file system-specific builder manual pages  for  fur-
       ther details.

OPTIONS
       -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.

BUGS
       All generic options must precede and not be combined with file system-specific options.  Some file  system-specific  pro-
       grams 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.

AUTHORS
       David Engel (davidATods.com)
       Fred N. van Kempen (waltjeATuwalt.org)
       Ron Sommeling (sommelATsci.nl)
       The manual page was shamelessly adapted from Remy Card's version for the ext2 file system.

SEE ALSO
       fs(5),  badblocks(8),  fsck(8),  mkdosfs(8),   mke2fs(8),   mkfs.bfs(8),   mkfs.ext2(8),   mkfs.ext3(8),   mkfs.minix(8),
       mkfs.msdos(8), mkfs.vfat(8), mkfs.xfs(8), mkfs.xiafs(8)

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/.



Version 1.9                                                 Jun 1995                                                     MKFS(8)