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/.

util-linux                                          June 2011                                            MKFS(8)