# phpman > info > mkfs

[MKFS(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/MKFS/8/markdown)                      System Administration                     [MKFS(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/MKFS/8/markdown)

NAME
       mkfs - build a Linux filesystem

SYNOPSIS
       mkfs [options] [-t type] [fs-options] device [size]

DESCRIPTION
       This mkfs frontend is deprecated in favour of filesystem specific
       mkfs.<type> utils.

       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 status 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 via your PATH environment setting only. 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.

       -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 text and exit.

BUGS
       All generic options must precede and not be combined with
       filesystem-specific options. 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/fs/5/markdown), [badblocks(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/badblocks/8/markdown), [fsck(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/fsck/8/markdown), [mkdosfs(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkdosfs/8/markdown), [mke2fs(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mke2fs/8/markdown), [mkfs.bfs(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkfs.bfs/8/markdown),
       [mkfs.ext2(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkfs.ext2/8/markdown), [mkfs.ext3(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkfs.ext3/8/markdown), [mkfs.ext4(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkfs.ext4/8/markdown), [mkfs.minix(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkfs.minix/8/markdown), [mkfs.msdos(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkfs.msdos/8/markdown),
       [mkfs.vfat(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkfs.vfat/8/markdown), [mkfs.xfs(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mkfs.xfs/8/markdown)

REPORTING BUGS
       For bug reports, use the issue tracker at
       <https://github.com/karelzak/util-linux/issues>.

AVAILABILITY
       The mkfs command is part of the util-linux package which can be
       downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
       <<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>>.

util-linux 2.37.2                 2021-06-02                           [MKFS(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/MKFS/8/markdown)