MKFS(8)

💖 MKFS(8) — the manual page, bestie edition 💖

okay so real talk: this is mkfs, and it lives in section 8 of the man pages (that's the system-administration girlies section, iykyk). she builds Linux filesystems. she's a little old-school, she's a frontend, and honestly? she's iconic. let's get into it. ✨

---

🌸 NAME 🌸

mkfs — build a Linux filesystem. that's it. that's the whole job. 🫶

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

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

like. look at her. short, simple, devastating. 💅

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so first things first, and I need you to hear me on this one:

this mkfs frontend is deprecated in favour of the filesystem-specific mkfs.<type> utils. so like... she still works, but the cool kids are calling the specific ones now. no cap. 😭

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. that's the whole vibe check: 0 = slay, 1 = 💀.

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. yes, ext2. she's vintage. she's retro. we love her anyway. 🙈
• fs-options — filesystem-specific options to be passed to the real filesystem builder. not hers, theirs. she's just the messenger bestie.
• -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. (also lowkey the wildest flag in here, keep reading 👀)
• -h, --help — display help text and exit. the classic. the icon. 🫶
• -V, --version — display version and exit. (Option -V will display version information only when it is the only parameter, otherwise it will work as --verbose.)

not the SAME -V doing two completely different jobs depending on how lonely it is 😭 bestie is a method actor fr fr

---

💀 BUGS 💀

• all generic options must precede and not be combined with filesystem-specific options. order matters, queen. do not freestyle this.
• some filesystem-specific programs do not automatically detect the device size and require the size parameter to be specified.

so if you skip size and your builder doesn't auto-detect, it's giving "surprise, nothing works" energy. just pass the size. trust. 🙏

---

👑 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. "shamelessly" is their word, not mine, and honestly? respect the honesty. 🌈

---

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

fs(5), badblocks(8), fsck(8), mkdosfs(8), mke2fs(8), mkfs.bfs(8), mkfs.ext2(8), mkfs.ext3(8), mkfs.ext4(8), mkfs.minix(8), mkfs.msdos(8), mkfs.vfat(8), mkfs.xfs(8)

that's the whole friend group right there. the mkfs.<type> girlies. go say hi. 💜

---

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

for bug reports, use the issue tracker <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

found a problem? don't suffer in silence, bestie. tell the maintainers. they're nice, I promise. 🍓

---

⭐ 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/>.

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one came from util-linux 2.42.4, dated 2026-09-21, and it's MKFS(8) in the system administration section 🧚 go build something cute (but maybe read the fs-specific man page first, fr fr) 💖✨🎀