From Linux Man Pages
mkfs - build a Linux file system
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-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 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 supported 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-spe-
cific 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.
RELATED
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)
CATEGORY