MKE2FS(8)



MKE2FS(8)                   System Manager's Manual                  MKE2FS(8)

NAME
       mke2fs - create an ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem

SYNOPSIS
       mke2fs  [ -c | -l filename ] [ -b block-size ] [ -C cluster-size ] [ -d
       root-directory ] [ -D ] [ -g blocks-per-group ] [ -G number-of-groups ]
       [  -i bytes-per-inode ] [ -I inode-size ] [ -j ] [ -J journal-options ]
       [ -N number-of-inodes ] [ -n ] [ -m reserved-blocks-percentage ]  [  -o
       creator-os ] [ -O [^]feature[,...]  ] [ -q ] [ -r fs-revision-level ] [
       -E extended-options ] [ -v ] [ -F ] [ -L  volume-label  ]  [  -M  last-
       mounted-directory ] [ -S ] [ -t fs-type ] [ -T usage-type ] [ -U UUID ]
       [ -V ] [ -e errors-behavior ] [ -z undo_file ] device [ fs-size ]

       mke2fs -O journal_dev [ -b block-size ] [ -L volume-label ] [ -n ] [ -q
       ] [ -v ] external-journal [ fs-size ]

DESCRIPTION
       mke2fs  is used to create an ext2, ext3, or ext4 filesystem, usually in
       a disk partition (or file) named by device.

       The file system size is specified by fs-size.  If fs-size does not have
       a  suffix,  it  is interpreted as power-of-two kilobytes, unless the -b
       blocksize option is specified, in which case fs-size is interpreted  as
       the  number  of  blocksize blocks.   If the fs-size is suffixed by 'k',
       'm', 'g', 't' (either upper-case or lower-case), then it is interpreted
       in  power-of-two  kilobytes,  megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, etc.  If
       fs-size is omitted, mke2fs will create the file system based on the de-
       vice size.

       If mke2fs is run as mkfs.XXX (i.e., mkfs.ext2, mkfs.ext3, or mkfs.ext4)
       the option -t XXX is implied; so mkfs.ext3 will create  a  file  system
       for  use  with  ext3,  mkfs.ext4 will create a file system for use with
       ext4, and so on.

       The defaults of the parameters for the newly created filesystem, if not
       overridden   by  the  options  listed  below,  are  controlled  by  the
       /etc/mke2fs.conf configuration file.   See  the  mke2fs.conf(5)  manual
       page for more details.

OPTIONS
       -b block-size
              Specify  the  size  of blocks in bytes.  Valid block-size values
              are 1024, 2048 and 4096 bytes per block.  If omitted, block-size
              is  heuristically  determined by the filesystem size and the ex-
              pected usage of the filesystem (see the -T option).   If  block-
              size  is preceded by a negative sign ('-'), then mke2fs will use
              heuristics to determine the appropriate  block  size,  with  the
              constraint  that  the  block  size  will  be at least block-size
              bytes.  This is useful for certain hardware  devices  which  re-
              quire that the blocksize be a multiple of 2k.

       -c     Check the device for bad blocks before creating the file system.
              If this option is specified twice, then a slower read-write test
              is used instead of a fast read-only test.

       -C  cluster-size
              Specify  the  size of cluster in bytes for filesystems using the
              bigalloc feature.  Valid cluster-size values are  from  2048  to
              256M  bytes  per cluster.  This can only be specified if the bi-
              galloc feature is enabled.  (See the ext4 (5) man page for  more
              details  about bigalloc.)   The default cluster size if bigalloc
              is enabled is 16 times the block size.

       -d root-directory
              Copy the contents of the given directory into the root directory
              of the filesystem.

       -D     Use  direct  I/O  when  writing to the disk.  This avoids mke2fs
              dirtying a lot of buffer cache memory, which  may  impact  other
              applications  running  on a busy server.  This option will cause
              mke2fs to run much more slowly, however, so there is a  tradeoff
              to using direct I/O.

       -e error-behavior
              Change the behavior of the kernel code when errors are detected.
              In all cases, a filesystem error will cause e2fsck(8)  to  check
              the  filesystem  on the next boot.  error-behavior can be one of
              the following:

                   continue    Continue normal execution.

                   remount-ro  Remount filesystem read-only.

                   panic       Cause a kernel panic.

       -E extended-options
              Set extended options for the filesystem.  Extended  options  are
              comma separated, and may take an argument using the equals ('=')
              sign.  The -E option used  to  be  -R  in  earlier  versions  of
              mke2fs.   The -R option is still accepted for backwards compati-
              bility, but is deprecated.  The following extended  options  are
              supported:

                   encoding=encoding-name
                          Enable  the  casefold feature in the super block and
                          set encoding-name as the encoding to  be  used.   If
                          encoding-name is not specified, the encoding defined
                          in mke2fs.conf(5) is used.

                   encoding_flags=encoding-flags
                          Define parameters for file name  character  encoding
                          operations.  If a flag is not changed using this pa-
                          rameter, its default value is used.   encoding-flags
                          should be a comma-separated lists of flags to be en-
                          abled.  To disable a flag, add it to the  list  with
                          the prefix "no".

                          The  only  flag  that can be set right now is strict
                          which means that invalid strings should be  rejected
                          by  the  file system.  In the default configuration,
                          the strict flag is disabled.

                   mmp_update_interval=interval
                          Adjust the initial MMP update interval  to  interval
                          seconds.   Specifying  an interval of 0 means to use
                          the default interval.  The specified  interval  must
                          be  less  than  300  seconds.  Requires that the mmp
                          feature be enabled.

                   stride=stride-size
                          Configure the  filesystem  for  a  RAID  array  with
                          stride-size filesystem blocks. This is the number of
                          blocks read or written to disk before moving to  the
                          next  disk,  which  is  sometimes referred to as the
                          chunk  size.   This  mostly  affects  placement   of
                          filesystem  metadata  like bitmaps at mke2fs time to
                          avoid placing them on a single disk, which can  hurt
                          performance.  It may also be used by the block allo-
                          cator.

                   stripe_width=stripe-width
                          Configure the  filesystem  for  a  RAID  array  with
                          stripe-width  filesystem  blocks per stripe. This is
                          typically stride-size * N, where N is the number  of
                          data-bearing  disks  in  the  RAID  (e.g. for RAID 5
                          there is one parity disk, so N will be the number of
                          disks  in the array minus 1).  This allows the block
                          allocator to prevent read-modify-write of the parity
                          in  a RAID stripe if possible when the data is writ-
                          ten.

                   offset=offset
                          Create the filesystem at an offset from  the  begin-
                          ning of the device or file.  This can be useful when
                          creating disk images for virtual machines.

                   resize=max-online-resize
                          Reserve enough space so that  the  block  group  de-
                          scriptor table can grow to support a filesystem that
                          has max-online-resize blocks.

                   lazy_itable_init[= <0 to disable, 1 to enable>]
                          If enabled and the uninit_bg feature is enabled, the
                          inode table will not be fully initialized by mke2fs.
                          This speeds up filesystem initialization noticeably,
                          but  it  requires  the kernel to finish initializing
                          the filesystem in the background when the filesystem
                          is  first  mounted.  If the option value is omitted,
                          it defaults to 1 to enable lazy inode table zeroing.

                   lazy_journal_init[= <0 to disable, 1 to enable>]
                          If enabled, the journal inode will not be fully  ze-
                          roed  out by mke2fs.  This speeds up filesystem ini-
                          tialization noticeably, but carries some small  risk
                          if  the  system  crashes before the journal has been
                          overwritten entirely one time.  If the option  value
                          is  omitted, it defaults to 1 to enable lazy journal
                          inode zeroing.

                   no_copy_xattrs
                          Normally mke2fs will copy the extended attributes of
                          the  files  in the directory hierarchy specified via
                          the (optional) -d option.   This  will  disable  the
                          copy  and leaves the files in the newly created file
                          system without any extended attributes.

                   num_backup_sb=<0|1|2>
                          If the sparse_super2 file system feature is  enabled
                          this  option controls whether there will be 0, 1, or
                          2 backup superblocks created in the file system.

                   packed_meta_blocks[= <0 to disable, 1 to enable>]
                          Place the allocation bitmaps and the inode table  at
                          the  beginning  of  the  disk.  This option requires
                          that the flex_bg file system feature to  be  enabled
                          in order for it to have effect, and will also create
                          the journal at the beginning  of  the  file  system.
                          This option is useful for flash devices that use SLC
                          flash at the beginning of the disk.  It  also  maxi-
                          mizes the range of contiguous data blocks, which can
                          be useful for certain specialized use cases, such as
                          supported Shingled Drives.

                   root_owner[=uid:gid]
                          Specify  the  numeric  user and group ID of the root
                          directory.  If no UID:GID is specified, use the user
                          and  group ID of the user running mke2fs.  In mke2fs
                          1.42 and earlier the UID and GID of the root  direc-
                          tory  were  set by default to the UID and GID of the
                          user running the mke2fs  command.   The  root_owner=
                          option  allows  explicitly  specifying these values,
                          and avoid side-effects for users that do not  expect
                          the  contents  of  the filesystem to change based on
                          the user running mke2fs.

                   test_fs
                          Set a flag in the filesystem  superblock  indicating
                          that  it  may  be  mounted using experimental kernel
                          code, such as the ext4dev filesystem.

                   discard
                          Attempt to discard blocks at mkfs  time  (discarding
                          blocks  initially  is  useful on solid state devices
                          and sparse / thin-provisioned storage). When the de-
                          vice  advertises  that discard also zeroes data (any
                          subsequent read after the discard and  before  write
                          returns  zero),  then  mark all not-yet-zeroed inode
                          tables  as  zeroed.  This  significantly  speeds  up
                          filesystem initialization. This is set as default.

                   nodiscard
                          Do not attempt to discard blocks at mkfs time.

                   quotatype
                          Specify  the which  quota types (usrquota, grpquota,
                          prjquota) which should be  enabled  in  the  created
                          file  system.   The argument of this extended option
                          should be a colon separated list.  This  option  has
                          effect  only  if the quota feature is set.   The de-
                          fault quota types to be initialized if  this  option
                          is  not specified is both user and group quotas.  If
                          the project feature is enabled that  project  quotas
                          will be initialized as well.

       -F     Force  mke2fs  to create a filesystem, even if the specified de-
              vice is not a partition on a block special device, or  if  other
              parameters  do not make sense.  In order to force mke2fs to cre-
              ate a filesystem even if the filesystem appears to be in use  or
              is  mounted (a truly dangerous thing to do), this option must be
              specified twice.

       -g blocks-per-group
              Specify the number of blocks in a block group.  There is  gener-
              ally  no  reason for the user to ever set this parameter, as the
              default is optimal for the filesystem.  (For administrators  who
              are creating filesystems on RAID arrays, it is preferable to use
              the stride RAID parameter as part of the -E option  rather  than
              manipulating  the  number  of blocks per group.)  This option is
              generally used by developers who are developing test cases.

              If the bigalloc feature is enabled, the -g option  will  specify
              the number of clusters in a block group.

       -G number-of-groups
              Specify  the number of block groups that will be packed together
              to create a larger virtual block group (or "flex_bg  group")  in
              an  ext4  filesystem.  This improves meta-data locality and per-
              formance on meta-data heavy workloads.   The  number  of  groups
              must  be  a  power of 2 and may only be specified if the flex_bg
              filesystem feature is enabled.

       -i bytes-per-inode
              Specify the bytes/inode ratio.  mke2fs creates an inode for  ev-
              ery  bytes-per-inode bytes of space on the disk.  The larger the
              bytes-per-inode ratio, the fewer inodes will be  created.   This
              value  generally  shouldn't be smaller than the blocksize of the
              filesystem, since in that case more inodes would  be  made  than
              can  ever  be used.  Be warned that it is not possible to change
              this ratio on a filesystem after it is created,  so  be  careful
              deciding the correct value for this parameter.  Note that resiz-
              ing a filesystem changes the number of inodes to  maintain  this
              ratio.

       -I inode-size
              Specify  the  size of each inode in bytes.  The inode-size value
              must be a power of 2 larger or equal to 128.  The larger the in-
              ode-size  the  more space the inode table will consume, and this
              reduces the usable space in the filesystem and  can  also  nega-
              tively  impact  performance.   It is not possible to change this
              value after the filesystem is created.

              File systems with an inode size of  128  bytes  do  not  support
              timestamps  beyond January 19, 2038.  Inodes which are 256 bytes
              or larger will support extended timestamps,  project  id's,  and
              the ability to store some extended attributes in the inode table
              for improved performance.

              The default inode size is controlled by the mke2fs.conf(5) file.
              In  the mke2fs.conf file shipped with e2fsprogs, the default in-
              ode size is 256 bytes for most file systems,  except  for  small
              file systems where the inode size will be 128 bytes.

       -j     Create the filesystem with an ext3 journal.  If the -J option is
              not specified, the default journal parameters will  be  used  to
              create  an  appropriately  sized  journal (given the size of the
              filesystem) stored within the filesystem.  Note that you must be
              using  a kernel which has ext3 support in order to actually make
              use of the journal.

       -J journal-options
              Create the ext3 journal using options specified on the  command-
              line.   Journal options are comma separated, and may take an ar-
              gument using the equals ('=')  sign.  The following journal  op-
              tions are supported:

                   size=journal-size
                          Create  an internal journal (i.e., stored inside the
                          filesystem) of  size  journal-size  megabytes.   The
                          size of the journal must be at least 1024 filesystem
                          blocks (i.e., 1MB if using 1k blocks, 4MB  if  using
                          4k blocks, etc.)  and may be no more than 10,240,000
                          filesystem blocks or half the total file system size
                          (whichever is smaller)

                   location=journal-location
                          Specify  the  location of the journal.  The argument
                          journal-location can either be specified as a  block
                          number,  or  if the number has a units suffix (e.g.,
                          'M', 'G', etc.) interpret it as the offset from  the
                          beginning of the file system.

                   device=external-journal
                          Attach  the  filesystem  to the journal block device
                          located on external-journal.  The  external  journal
                          must already have been created using the command

                          mke2fs -O journal_dev external-journal

                          Note  that  external-journal  must have been created
                          with the same block size as the new filesystem.   In
                          addition,  while there is support for attaching mul-
                          tiple filesystems to a single external journal,  the
                          Linux  kernel and e2fsck(8) do not currently support
                          shared external journals yet.

                          Instead of specifying a device name directly, exter-
                          nal-journal  can  also  be  specified  by either LA-
                          BEL=label or UUID=UUID to locate the external  jour-
                          nal by either the volume label or UUID stored in the
                          ext2 superblock at the start of  the  journal.   Use
                          dumpe2fs(8) to display a journal device's volume la-
                          bel and UUID.  See also the -L option of tune2fs(8).

              Only one of the size or  device  options  can  be  given  for  a
              filesystem.

       -l filename
              Read  the  bad  blocks  list from filename.  Note that the block
              numbers in the bad block list must be generated using  the  same
              block  size  as  used  by mke2fs.  As a result, the -c option to
              mke2fs is a much simpler and less error-prone method of checking
              a disk for bad blocks before formatting it, as mke2fs will auto-
              matically pass the correct parameters to the badblocks program.

       -L new-volume-label
              Set the volume label for  the  filesystem  to  new-volume-label.
              The maximum length of the volume label is 16 bytes.

       -m reserved-blocks-percentage
              Specify the percentage of the filesystem blocks reserved for the
              super-user.  This avoids fragmentation,  and  allows  root-owned
              daemons,  such  as syslogd(8), to continue to function correctly
              after non-privileged processes are prevented from writing to the
              filesystem.  The default percentage is 5%.

       -M last-mounted-directory
              Set  the  last mounted directory for the filesystem.  This might
              be useful for the sake of utilities that key  off  of  the  last
              mounted  directory  to  determine where the filesystem should be
              mounted.

       -n     Causes mke2fs to not actually create a filesystem,  but  display
              what it would do if it were to create a filesystem.  This can be
              used to determine the location of the backup superblocks  for  a
              particular  filesystem,  so  long  as the mke2fs parameters that
              were passed when the filesystem was originally created are  used
              again.  (With the -n option added, of course!)

       -N number-of-inodes
              Overrides  the  default calculation of the number of inodes that
              should be reserved for the filesystem (which  is  based  on  the
              number  of  blocks  and the bytes-per-inode ratio).  This allows
              the user to specify the number of desired inodes directly.

       -o creator-os
              Overrides the default value of the  "creator  operating  system"
              field of the filesystem.  The creator field is set by default to
              the name of the OS the mke2fs executable was compiled for.

       -O [^]feature[,...]
              Create a filesystem with  the  given  features  (filesystem  op-
              tions), overriding the default filesystem options.  The features
              that are enabled by default are specified by  the  base_features
              relation,    either   in   the   [defaults]   section   in   the
              /etc/mke2fs.conf configuration file, or in the  [fs_types]  sub-
              sections for the usage types as specified by the -T option, fur-
              ther modified by the features relation found in  the  [fs_types]
              subsections  for  the  filesystem  and  usage  types.   See  the
              mke2fs.conf(5) manual page for  more  details.   The  filesystem
              type-specific configuration setting found in the [fs_types] sec-
              tion will override the global default found in [defaults].

              The filesystem feature set will be further edited  using  either
              the  feature  set specified by this option, or if this option is
              not given, by the default_features relation for  the  filesystem
              type being created, or in the [defaults] section of the configu-
              ration file.

              The filesystem feature set is comprised of a list  of  features,
              separated  by commas, that are to be enabled.  To disable a fea-
              ture, simply prefix the feature name with a caret ('^')  charac-
              ter.   Features  with  dependencies will not be removed success-
              fully.  The pseudo-filesystem  feature  "none"  will  clear  all
              filesystem features.

       For more information about the features which can be set, please see
              the manual page ext4(5).

       -q     Quiet execution.  Useful if mke2fs is run in a script.

       -r revision
              Set  the  filesystem revision for the new filesystem.  Note that
              1.2 kernels only support revision 0 filesystems.  The default is
              to create revision 1 filesystems.

       -S     Write superblock and group descriptors only.  This is an extreme
              measure to be taken only in the very unlikely case that  all  of
              the superblock and backup superblocks are corrupted, and a last-
              ditch recovery method  is  desired  by  experienced  users.   It
              causes  mke2fs to reinitialize the superblock and group descrip-
              tors, while not touching the inode table and the block and inode
              bitmaps.   The  e2fsck  program  should be run immediately after
              this option is used, and there is no  guarantee  that  any  data
              will  be  salvageable.   Due to the wide variety of possible op-
              tions to mke2fs that affect the on-disk layout, it  is  critical
              to  specify  exactly the same format options, such as blocksize,
              fs-type, feature flags, and other tunables when using  this  op-
              tion,  or  the  filesystem  will  be further corrupted.  In some
              cases, such as filesystems that have been resized, or  have  had
              features  enabled  after  format time, it is impossible to over-
              write all of  the  superblocks  correctly,  and  at  least  some
              filesystem  corruption  will occur.  It is best to run this on a
              full copy of the filesystem so other options  can  be  tried  if
              this doesn't work.

       -t fs-type
              Specify  the filesystem type (i.e., ext2, ext3, ext4, etc.) that
              is to be created.  If this option is not specified, mke2fs  will
              pick  a default either via how the command was run (for example,
              using a name of the form mkfs.ext2, mkfs.ext3, etc.)  or  via  a
              default  as  defined by the /etc/mke2fs.conf file.   This option
              controls which filesystem options are used by default, based  on
              the fstypes configuration stanza in /etc/mke2fs.conf.

              If  the -O option is used to explicitly add or remove filesystem
              options that should be set in the newly created filesystem,  the
              resulting  filesystem  may not be supported by the requested fs-
              type.  (e.g., "mke2fs -t ext3 -O extent /dev/sdXX" will create a
              filesystem  that  is not supported by the ext3 implementation as
              found in the Linux kernel; and "mke2fs -t ext3  -O  ^has_journal
              /dev/hdXX" will create a filesystem that does not have a journal
              and hence will not be supported by the ext3 filesystem  code  in
              the Linux kernel.)

       -T usage-type[,...]
              Specify  how  the filesystem is going to be used, so that mke2fs
              can choose optimal filesystem parameters for that use.  The  us-
              age  types  that  are supported are defined in the configuration
              file /etc/mke2fs.conf.  The user may specify one or  more  usage
              types using a comma separated list.

              If  this  option  is is not specified, mke2fs will pick a single
              default usage type based on the size of  the  filesystem  to  be
              created.   If  the  filesystem  size  is  less than 3 megabytes,
              mke2fs will use the filesystem type floppy.  If  the  filesystem
              size  is greater than or equal to 3 but less than 512 megabytes,
              mke2fs(8) will use the filesystem type small.  If the filesystem
              size  is  greater  than or equal to 4 terabytes but less than 16
              terabytes, mke2fs(8) will use the filesystem type big.   If  the
              filesystem  size  is  greater  than  or  equal  to 16 terabytes,
              mke2fs(8)  will  use  the  filesystem  type  huge.    Otherwise,
              mke2fs(8) will use the default filesystem type default.

       -U UUID
              Set  the  universally unique identifier (UUID) of the filesystem
              to UUID.  The format of the UUID is a series of hex digits sepa-
              rated          by          hyphens,          like          this:
              "c1b9d5a2-f162-11cf-9ece-0020afc76f16".  The UUID parameter  may
              also be one of the following:

                   clear  clear the filesystem UUID

                   random generate a new randomly-generated UUID

                   time   generate a new time-based UUID

       -v     Verbose execution.

       -V     Print the version number of mke2fs and exit.

       -z undo_file
              Before  overwriting  a file system block, write the old contents
              of the block to an undo file.  This undo file can be  used  with
              e2undo(8)  to restore the old contents of the file system should
              something go wrong.  If  the  empty  string  is  passed  as  the
              undo_file  argument,  the  undo  file  will be written to a file
              named mke2fs-device.e2undo in the directory  specified  via  the
              E2FSPROGS_UNDO_DIR  environment  variable or the undo_dir direc-
              tive in the configuration file.

              WARNING: The undo file cannot be used to recover from a power or
              system crash.

ENVIRONMENT
       MKE2FS_SYNC
              If set to non-zero integer value, its value is used to determine
              how often sync(2) is called during inode table initialization.

       MKE2FS_CONFIG
              Determines  the  location  of  the   configuration   file   (see
              mke2fs.conf(5)).

       MKE2FS_FIRST_META_BG
              If set to non-zero integer value, its value is used to determine
              first meta block group. This is mostly for debugging purposes.

       MKE2FS_DEVICE_SECTSIZE
              If set to non-zero integer value, its value is used to determine
              logical sector size of the device.

       MKE2FS_DEVICE_PHYS_SECTSIZE
              If set to non-zero integer value, its value is used to determine
              physical sector size of the device.

       MKE2FS_SKIP_CHECK_MSG
              If set, do not show the message of  filesystem  automatic  check
              caused by mount count or check interval.

AUTHOR
       This   version   of   mke2fs   has   been   written  by  Theodore  Ts'o
       <tytso@mit.edu>.

AVAILABILITY
       mke2fs  is  part  of  the  e2fsprogs  package  and  is  available  from
       http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net.

SEE ALSO
       mke2fs.conf(5),   badblocks(8),   dumpe2fs(8),  e2fsck(8),  tune2fs(8),
       ext4(5)

E2fsprogs version 1.45.6          March 2020                         MKE2FS(8)

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