NAME

       mkfs - build a Linux filesystem

SYNOPSIS

SYNOPSIS

       mkfs [options] [-t type fs-options] device [size]

DESCRIPTION

       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 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  filesystem-specific
       builder manual pages for further details.

OPTIONS

       -t, --type type
              Specify  the  type  of  filesystem  to  be  built.   If  not specified, the default
              filesystem type (currently ext2) is used.

       fs-options
              Filesystem-specific options to be passed to the real filesystem builder.   Although
              not guaranteed, the following options are supported by most filesystem builders.

       -V, --verbose
              Produce  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, --version
              Display  version information and exit.  (Option -V will display version information
              only when it is the only parameter, otherwise it will work as --verbose.)

       -h, --help
              Display help and exit.

BUGS

       All generic options must precede and not be  combined  with  filesystem-specific  options.
       Some  filesystem-specific  programs  do  not  support  the -V (verbose) option, nor return
       meaningful exit codes.  Also,  some  filesystem-specific  programs  do  not  automatically
       detect the device size and require the size parameter to be specified.

AUTHORS

       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.

SEE ALSO

       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),
       mkfs.xiafs(8)

AVAILABILITY

       The   mkfs   command   is   part   of   the  util-linux  package  and  is  available  from
       ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.