NAME

       uml_mkcow — create a new COW file

SYNOPSIS

       uml_mkcow [-f]  [COW_file]  [backing_file]

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page documents briefly the uml_mkcow command.

       This  manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not
       have a manual page.  Instead, it has documentation in HTML format; see below.

       uml_mkcow is a small utility to create COW (Copy-On-Write) files without the need to  run  the  full  UML
       kernel.

       NOTE:  you can save a lot of disk space using COW files.  When checking the size of the COW file in order
       to see the gobs of space that you're saving,  make  sure  you  use  'ls  -ls'  to  see  the  actual  disk
       consumption  rather  than  the  length  of  the  file. The COW file is sparse, so the length will be very
       different from the disk usage.

OPTIONS

       -f        Force overwrite of an exsiting COW file.

EXAMPLES

       Create a new COW file:

       uml_mkcow rootfs_COW rootfs

       Overwrite (destroying) an existing COW file:

       uml_mkcow -f rootfs_COW rootfs

SEE ALSO

       The UserModeLinux-HOWTO (link to URL http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/UserModeLinux-HOWTO.html)

AUTHOR

       uml_mkcow was written by Steve Schnepp.

       This manual page was written by Mattia Dongili malattia@debian.org for the Debian GNU/Linux system, based
       on material in the UserModeLinux-HOWTO by Rusty Russell.

                                                                                                    UML_MKCOW(1)