cfdisk(8) [debian man page]
CFDISK(8) GNU cfdisk Manual CFDISK(8) NAME
GNU cfdisk - a curses-based partition table manipulation program SYNOPSIS
cfdisk [options] [device] DESCRIPTION
cfdisk is a disk partition manipulation program, which allows you to create, destroy, resize, move and copy partitions on a hard drive using a simple menu-driven interface. It is useful for organising the disk space on a new drive, reorganising an old drive, creating space for new operating systems, and copying data to new hard disks. For a list of the supported partition types, see the --list-partition-types option below. OPTIONS
-h, --help displays a help message. -v, --version displays the program's version. -a, --arrow-cursor use an arrow cursor, instead of reverse video highlighting, in case your terminal doesn't support it. -z, --new-table create a new partition table on the disk. This is useful if you want to change the partition table type or want to repartition you entire drive. Note that this does not delete the old table on the disk until you commit the changes. -u, --units=UNIT sets the default display units to UNIT. A list of possible units is given below. -t, --list-partition-types displays a list of supported partition types and features. UNITS
You can choose in what unit cfdisk should display quantities like partition sizes. You can choose from sectors, percents, bytes, kilobytes, etc. Note that one kilobyte is equal to 1,000 bytes, as this is consistent with the SI prefixes and is used by hard disk manufacturers. If you prefer to see the sizes in units with binary prefixes, you should instead select one kilo binary byte (kibibyte), which is equal to 1,024 bytes. Whatever display unit you have chosen, you can always enter the quantities in the unit of your choice, for example 1000000B or 1000kB. compact display each size in the most suitable unit from B, kB, MB, GB and TB. B one byte kB one kilobyte (1,000 bytes) MB one megabyte (1,000,000 bytes) GB one gigabyte (1,000,000,000 bytes) TB one terabyte (1,000,000,000,000 bytes) KiB one kilo binary byte (1,024 bytes) MiB one mega binary byte (1,048,576 bytes) GiB one giga binary byte (1,073,741,824 bytes) TiB one tera binary byte (1,099,511,627,776 bytes) s one sector. It depends on the sector size of the disk. You can use it if you want to see or choose the exact size in sectors. % one percent from the size of the disk cyl one cylinder. It depends on the cylinder size. chs use CHS display units. BUGS
There are no known bugs. We are in early stages for development, so be careful. SEE ALSO
fdisk(8), mkfs(8), parted(8) The cfdisk program is fully documented in the info(1) format GNU cfdisk User Manual manual. fdisk 16 June, 2006 CFDISK(8)
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CFDISK(8) System Administration CFDISK(8) 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 con- firm 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. SEE ALSO
fdisk(8), parted(8), partprobe(8), partx(8), sfdisk(8) 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)