redhat man page for mkfs

MKFS(8) 						      System Manager's Manual							   MKFS(8)

NAME
       mkfs - build a Linux file system

SYNOPSIS
       mkfs [ -V ] [ -t fstype ] [ fs-options ] filesys [ blocks ]

DESCRIPTION
       mkfs  is used to build a Linux file system on a device, usually a hard disk partition.  filesys is either the device name (e.g.	/dev/hda1,
       /dev/sdb2) or the mount point (e.g.  /, /usr, /home) for the file system.  blocks is the number of blocks to be used for the file system.

       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 file system builders (mkfs.fstype) available under Linux.   The  file  system-spe-
       cific  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  enviroment  variable.
       Please see the file system-specific builder manual pages for further details.

OPTIONS
       -V     Produce  verbose	output,  including  all  file  system-specific	commands that are executed.  Specifying this option more than once
	      inhibits execution of any file system-specific commands.	This is really only useful for testing.

       -t fstype
	      Specifies the type of file system to be built.  If not specified, the default file system type (currently ext2) is used.

       fs-options
	      File system-specific options to be passed to the real file system builder.  Although not guaranteed, the following options are  sup-
	      ported by most file system builders.

       -c     Check the device for bad blocks before building the file system.

       -l filename
	      Read the bad blocks list from filename

       -v     Produce verbose output.

BUGS
       All  generic options must precede and not be combined with file system-specific options.  Some file system-specific programs do not support
       the -v (verbose) option, nor return meaningful exit codes.  Also, some file system-specific programs do not automatically detect the device
       size and require the blocks 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 file system.

SEE ALSO
       fs(5),  badblocks(8),  fsck(8), mkdosfs(8), mke2fs(8), mkfs.bfs(8), mkfs.ext2(8), mkfs.ext3(8), mkfs.minix(8), mkfs.msdos(8), mkfs.vfat(8),
       mkfs.xfs(8), mkfs.xiafs(8)

Version 1.9							     Jun 1995								   MKFS(8)