Ubuntu Manpage: cfdisk - display or manipulate a disk partition table

Provided by: fdisk_2.34-0.1ubuntu9.6_amd64

NAME

       cfdisk - display or manipulate a disk partition table

SYNOPSIS

       cfdisk [options] [device]

DESCRIPTION

       cfdisk is a curses-based program for partitioning any block device.  The default device is /dev/sda.

       Note  that  cfdisk provides basic partitioning functionality with a user-friendly interface.  If you need
       advanced features, use fdisk(8) instead.

       Since version 2.25 cfdisk supports MBR (DOS), GPT, SUN and SGI disk labels, but no  longer  provides  any
       functionality  for  CHS  (Cylinder-Head-Sector)  addressing.  CHS has never been important for Linux, and
       this addressing concept does not make any sense for new devices.

       Since version 2.25 cfdisk also does not provide a  'print'  command  any  more.   This  functionality  is
       provided by the utilities partx(8) and lsblk(8) in a very comfortable and rich way.

       If you want to remove an old partition table from a device, use wipefs(8).

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

       -L, --color[=when]
              Colorize  the  output.   The  optional  argument  when  can be auto, never or always.  If the when
              argument is omitted, it defaults to auto.  The colors can be disabled, for  the  current  built-in
              default see --help output. See also the COLORS section.

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

       -z, --zero
              Start  with an in-memory zeroed partition table.  This option does not zero the partition table on
              the disk; rather, it simply starts the program without reading the existing partition table.  This
              option allows you to create a new partition  table  from  scratch  or  from  an  sfdisk-compatible
              script.

COMMANDS

The commands for cfdisk can be entered by pressing the corresponding key (pressing Enter after the
command is not necessary). Here is a list of the available commands:

b Toggle the bootable flag of the current partition. This allows you to select which primary
partition is bootable on the drive. This command may not be available for all partition label
types.

d Delete the current partition. This will convert the current partition into free space and merge
it with any free space immediately surrounding the current partition. A partition already marked
as free space or marked as unusable cannot be deleted.

h Show the help screen.

n Create a new partition from free space. cfdisk then prompts you for the size of the partition you
want to create. The default size is equal to the entire available free space at the current
position.

The size may be followed by a multiplicative suffix: KiB (=1024), MiB (=1024*1024), and so on for
GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g. "K" has the same meaning as "KiB").

q Quit the program. This will exit the program without writing any data to the disk.

s Sort the partitions in ascending start-sector order. When deleting and adding partitions, it is
likely that the numbering of the partitions will no longer match their order on the disk. This
command restores that match.

t Change the partition type. By default, new partitions are created as Linux partitions.

u Dump the current in-memory partition table to an sfdisk-compatible script file.

The script files are compatible between cfdisk, fdisk, sfdisk and other libfdisk applications.
For more details see sfdisk(8).

It is also possible to load an sfdisk-script into cfdisk if there is no partition table on the
device or when you start cfdisk with the --zero command-line option.

W Write the partition table to disk (you must enter an uppercase W). Since this might destroy data
on the disk, you must either confirm or deny the write by entering `yes' or `no'. If you enter
`yes', cfdisk will write the partition table to disk and then tell the kernel to re-read the
partition table from the disk.

The re-reading of the partition table does not always work. In such a case you need to inform the
kernel about any new partitions by using partprobe(8) or partx(8), or by rebooting the system.

x Toggle extra information about a partition.

Up Arrow, Down Arrow
Move the cursor to the previous or next partition. If there are more partitions than can be
displayed on a screen, you can display the next (previous) set of partitions by moving down (up)
at the last (first) partition displayed on the screen.

Left Arrow, Right Arrow
Select the preceding or the next menu item. Hitting Enter will execute the currently selected
item.

All commands can be entered with either uppercase or lowercase letters (except for Write). When in a
submenu or at a prompt, you can hit the Esc key to return to the main menu.

COLORS

       Implicit coloring can be disabled by creating the empty file /etc/terminal-colors.d/cfdisk.disable.

       See terminal-colors.d(5) for more details about colorization configuration.

       cfdisk does not support color customization with a color-scheme file.

ENVIRONMENT

       CFDISK_DEBUG=all
              enables cfdisk debug output.

       LIBFDISK_DEBUG=all
              enables libfdisk debug output.

       LIBBLKID_DEBUG=all
              enables libblkid debug output.

       LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG=all
              enables libsmartcols debug output.

       LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG_PADDING=on
              use visible padding characters. Requires enabled LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG.

AUTHOR

       Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>

       The   current   cfdisk   implementation   is   based   on  the  original  cfdisk  from  Kevin  E.  Martin
       (martin@cs.unc.edu).

AVAILABILITY

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

util-linux                                         March 2014                                          CFDISK(8)