xref: /original-bsd/sbin/newfs/newfs.8 (revision b58a8d26)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1987, 1991 The Regents of the University of California.
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
5.\"
6.\"     @(#)newfs.8	6.10 (Berkeley) 03/16/91
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Dt NEWFS 8
10.Os BSD 4.2
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm newfs ,
13.Nm mfs
14.Nd construct a new file system
15.Sh SYNOPSIS
16.Nm newfs
17.Op Fl N
18.Op Ar newfs-options
19.Ar special
20.Nm mfs
21.Op Fl F Ar mount_flags
22.Op Ar newfs-options
23.Ar special node
24.Sh DESCRIPTION
25.Nm Newfs
26replaces the more obtuse
27.Xr mkfs 8
28program.
29Before running
30.Nm newfs
31or
32.Nm mfs ,
33the disk must be labeled using
34.Xr disklabel 8 .
35.Nm Newfs
36builds a file system on the specified special device
37basing its defaults on the information in the disk label.
38Typically the defaults are reasonable, however
39.Nm newfs
40has numerous options to allow the defaults to be selectively overridden.
41.Pp
42.Nm Mfs
43is used to build a file system in virtual memory and then mount it
44on a specified node.
45.Nm Mfs
46exits and the contents of the file system are lost
47when the file system is unmounted.
48If
49.Nm mfs
50is sent a signal while running,
51for example during system shutdown,
52it will attempt to unmount its
53corresponding file system.
54The parameters to
55.Nm mfs
56are the same as those to
57.Nm newfs .
58The special file is only used to read the disk label which provides
59a set of configuration parameters for the memory based file system.
60The special file is typically that of the primary swap area,
61since that is where the file system will be backed up when
62free memory gets low and the memory supporting
63the file system has to be paged.
64.Pp
65The following options define the general layout policies.
66.Bl -tag -width Fl
67.It Fl N
68Causes the file system parameters to be printed out
69without really creating the file system.
70.It Fl b Ar block-size
71The block size of the file system in bytes.
72.It Fl f Ar frag-size
73The fragment size of the file system in bytes.
74.It Fl m Ar free space \&%
75The percentage of space reserved from normal users; the minimum
76free space threshold.  The default value used is 10%.
77See
78.Xr tunefs 8
79for more details on how to set this option.
80.It Fl o Ar optimization\ preference
81.Pq ``space'' or ``time''
82The file system can either be instructed to try to minimize the time spent
83allocating blocks, or to try to minimize the space fragmentation on the disk.
84If the value of minfree (see above) is less than 10%,
85the default is to optimize for space;
86if the value of minfree greater than or equal to 10%,
87the default is to optimize for time.
88See
89.Xr tunefs 8
90for more details on how to set this option.
91.It Fl a Ar maxcontig
92This specifies the maximum number of contiguous blocks that will
93be laid out before forcing a rotational delay (see
94.Fl d
95below).
96The default value is one.
97See
98.Xr tunefs 8
99for more details on how to set this option.
100.It Fl d Ar rotdelay
101This specifies the expected time (in milliseconds)
102to service a transfer completion
103interrupt and initiate a new transfer on the same disk.
104The default is 4 milliseconds.
105See
106.Xr tunefs 8
107for more details on how to set this option.
108.It Fl e Ar maxbpg
109This indicates the maximum number of blocks any single file can
110allocate out of a cylinder group before it is forced to begin
111allocating blocks from another cylinder group.
112The default is about one quarter of the total blocks in a cylinder group.
113See
114.Xr tunefs 8
115for more details on how to set this option.
116.It Fl i Ar number of bytes per inode
117This specifies the density of inodes in the file system.
118The default is to create an inode for each 2048 bytes of data space.
119If fewer inodes are desired, a larger number should be used;
120to create more inodes a smaller number should be given.
121.It Fl c Ar #cylinders/group
122The number of cylinders per cylinder group in a file system.
123The default value used is 16.
124.It Fl s Ar size
125The size of the file system in sectors.
126.Pp
127The following options override the standard sizes for the disk geometry.
128Their default values are taken from the disk label.
129Changing these defaults is useful only when using
130.Nm newfs
131to build a file system whose raw image will eventually be used
132on a different type of disk than the one on which it is initially
133created (for example on a write-once disk).
134Note that changing any of these values from their
135defaults will make it impossible for
136.Xr fsck
137to find the alternate superblocks if the standard super block is lost.
138.It Fl r Ar revolutions/minute
139The speed of the disk in revolutions per minute.
140.It Fl S Ar sector-size
141The size of a sector in bytes (almost never anything but 512).
142.It Fl u Ar sectors/track
143The number of sectors per track available for data
144allocation by the file system.  This does not
145include sectors reserved at the end of each track
146for bad block replacement (see
147.Fl p
148below).
149.It Fl t Ar #tracks/cylinder
150The number of tracks/cylinder available for data
151allocation by the file system.
152.It Fl p Ar spare sectors per track
153Spare sectors (bad sector replacements) are physical sectors
154that occupy space at the end of each track.
155They are not counted as part of the sectors/track
156.Pq Fl u
157since they are not available to the file system for data allocation.
158.It Fl x Ar spare sectors per cylinder
159Spare sectors (bad sector replacements) are physical sectors
160that occupy space at the end of the last track in the cylinder.
161They are deducted from the sectors/track
162.Pq Fl u
163of the last track of each cylinder
164since they are not available to the file system for data allocation.
165.It Fl l Ar hardware sector interleave
166Used to describe perturbations in the media format to
167compensate for a slow controller.
168Interleave is physical sector interleave on each track,
169specified as the denominator of the ratio:
170.Dl sectors read/sectors passed over
171Thus an interleave of 1/1 implies contiguous layout, while 1/2
172implies logical sector 0 is separated by one sector from logical
173sector 1.
174.It Fl k Ar sector \&0 skew , per track
175Used to describe perturbations in the media format to
176compensate for a slow controller.
177Track skew is the offset of sector 0 on track N
178relative to sector 0 on track N-1 on the same cylinder.
179.Pp
180.El
181The following option applies only to
182.Nm mfs .
183.Bl -tag -width Fl
184.It Fl F Ar mount flags
185Used to pass in a decimal numeric value to be passed
186as mount flags when running as a memory based file system.
187This option is primarily intended for use when
188.Nm mfs
189is started by the
190.Xr mount 8
191command.
192.El
193.Sh SEE ALSO
194.Xr disktab 5 ,
195.Xr fs 5 ,
196.Xr disklabel 8 ,
197.Xr diskpart 8 ,
198.Xr fsck 8 ,
199.Xr format 8 ,
200.Xr tunefs 8
201.Rs
202.%A M. McKusick
203.%A W. Joy
204.%A S. Leffler
205.%A R. Fabry
206.%T A Fast File System for UNIX ,
207.%J ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 2
208.%V 3
209.%P pp 181-197
210.%D August 1984
211.%O (reprinted in the BSD System Manager's Manual)
212.Re
213.Sh HISTORY
214The
215.Nm
216command appeared in
217.Bx 4.2 .
218