mkfs_xfs(1M) mkfs_xfs(1M) NAME mkfs_xfs - construct an XFS filesystem SYNOPSIS mkfs_xfs [ -b subopt=value ] [ -d subopt[=value] ] [ -i subopt=value ] [ -l subopt[=value] ] [ -n subopt[=value] ] [ -p protofile ] [ -q ] [ -r subopt[=value] ] [ -C ] device DESCRIPTION mkfs_xfs constructs an XFS filesystem by writing on a special file using the values found in the arguments of the command line. It is invoked automatically by mkfs(1M) when mkfs is given the -t xfs option, options that are specific to XFS, or no options that are specific to EFS. In its simplest (and most commonly used form), the size of the filesystem is determined from the disk driver. As an example, to make a filesystem on partition 7 (all of the useable portion of an option drive, normally) on drive 7 on SCSI bus 0, with an internal log, use: mkfs_xfs /dev/dsk/dks0d7s7 XFS filesystems are composed of a data section, a log section, and optionally a real-time section. This separation can be accomplished using the XLV/XVM volume manager to create a multi-subvolume volume, or by embedding an internal log section in the data section. In the former case, the device name is supplied as the final argument. In the latter case a disk partition or XLV/XVM logical volume without a log subvolume can contain the XFS filesystem, which is named by the -d name=special option or by the final argument. Each of the subopt=value elements in the argument list above can be given as multiple comma-separated subopt=value suboptions if multiple suboptions apply to the same option. Equivalently, each main option can be given multiple times with different suboptions. For example, -l internal,size=1000b and -l internal -l size=1000b are equivalent. In the descriptions below, sizes are given in bytes, blocks, kilobytes, or megabytes. Sizes are treated as hexadecimal if prefixed by 0x or 0X, octal if prefixed by 0, or decimal otherwise. If suffixed with b then the size is converted by multiplying it by the filesystem's block size. If suffixed with k then the size is converted by multiplying it by 1024. If suffixed with m then the size is converted by multiplying it by 1048576 (1024 * 1024). If suffixed with g then the size is converted by multiplying it by 1073741824 (1024 * 1024 * 1024). -b Block size options. This option specifies the fundamental block size of the filesystem. The valid suboptions are: log=value and size=value; only one can be supplied. The block size is specified either as a base two logarithm value with log=, or in bytes with size=. The default value is 4096 bytes (4 KB). The minimum value for block size is 512; the maximum is 65536 (64 KB). -d Data section options. These options specify the location, size, and other parameters of the data section of the filesystem. The valid suboptions are: agcount=value, agsize=value, file[=value], largeag[=value], name=value, size=value, sunit=value, swidth=value, su=value, sw=value, and unwritten[=value]. The agcount suboption is used to specify the number of allocation groups. The data section of the filesystem is divided into allocation groups to improve the performance of XFS. More allocation groups imply that more parallelism can be achieved when allocating blocks and inodes. The minimum allocation group size is 16 MB; the maximum size is just under 4 GB. The data section of the filesystem is divided into agcount allocation groups (default value 8, unless the filesystem is smaller than 128 MB or larger than 8 GB). Setting agcount to a very large number should be avoided, since this causes an unreasonable amount of CPU time to be used when the filesystem is close to full. The agsize suboption is an alternative to using agcount. The argument provided to agsize is the desired size of the allocation group expressed in bytes (usually using the m or g suffixes). This value must be a multiple of the filesystem block size, and must be at least 16MB, and no more than 4GB, and may be automatically adjusted to properly align with the stripe geometry. The agcount suboption and the agsize suboption are mutually exclusive. The name suboption can be used to specify the name of the special file containing the filesystem. In this case, the log section must be specified as internal (with a size, see the -l option below) and there can be no real-time section. Either the block or character special device can be supplied. An XLV/XVM logical volume with a log subvolume cannot be supplied here. Note that the default log in this case is an internal log with at least 1000 blocks, actual size depending on the filesystem block size and the directory block size. The file suboption is used to specify that the file given by the name suboption is a regular file. The suboption value is either 0 or 1, with 1 signifying that the file is regular. This suboption is used only to make a filesystem image (for instance, a miniroot image). If the value is omitted then 1 is assumed. The size suboption is used to specify the size of the data section. This suboption is required if -d file[=1] is given. Otherwise, it is only needed if the filesystem should occupy less space than the size of the special file. The largeag suboption is used to change the default allocation group size from a maximum of 4GB to 1TB. It is better to use large AGs on multi-terabyte filesystems. The sunit suboption is used to specify the stripe unit for a RAID device or XLV/XVM striped volume. The suboption value has to be specified in 512-byte block units. Use the su suboption to specify the stripe unit size in bytes. This suboption ensures that data allocations will be stripe unit aligned when the current end of file is being extended and the file size is larger than the specified stripe unit size. Also inode allocations and the internal log will be stripe unit aligned. The su suboption is an alternative to using sunit. The su suboption is used to specify the stripe unit for a RAID device or XLV/XVM striped volume. The suboption value has to be specified in bytes, (usually using the m or g suffixes). This value must be a multiple of the filesystem block size. The swidth suboption is used to specify the stripe width for a RAID device or XLV/XVM striped volume. The suboption value has to be specified in 512-byte block units. Use the sw suboption to specify the stripe width size in bytes. This suboption is required if -d sunit has been specified and it has to be a multiple of the -d sunit suboption. The stripe width will be the preferred iosize returned in the stat system call. The sw suboption is an alternative to using swidth. The sw suboption is used to specify the stripe width for a RAID device or XLV/XVM striped volume. The suboption value is expressed as a multiplier of the stripe unit, usually the same as the number of stripe members in the XLV/XVM configuration, or data disks in a RAID device. The unwritten suboption is used to specify whether unwritten extents are flagged as such, or not. The suboption value is either 0 or 1, with 1 signifying that unwritten extent flagging should occur. If the suboption is omitted, unwritten extent flagging is enabled. If unwritten extents are flagged, filesystem write performance will be negatively affected for preallocated file extents, since extra filesystem transactions are required to convert extent flags for the range of the file written. This suboption should be disabled if the filesystem needs to be used on operating system versions which do not support the flagging capability. -i Inode options. This option specifies the inode size of the filesystem, and other inode allocation parameters. The XFS inode contains a fixed-size part and a variable-size part. The variable-size part, whose size is affected by this option, can contain: directory data, for small directories; attribute data, for small attribute sets; symbolic link data, for small symbolic links; the extent list for the file, for files with a small number of extents; and the root of a tree describing the location of extents for the file, for files with a large number of extents. The valid suboptions for specifying inode size are: log=value, perblock=value, and size=value; only one can be supplied. The inode size is specified either as a base two logarithm value with log=, in bytes with size=, or as the number fitting in a filesystem block with perblock=. The mininum (and default) value is 256 bytes. The maximum value is 2048 (2 KB) subject to the restriction that the inode size cannot exceed one half of the filesystem block size. The option maxpct=value specifies the maximum percentage of space in the filesystem that can be allocated to inodes. The default value is 25%. Setting the value to 0 means that essentially all of the filesystem can become inode blocks. The option align[=value] is used to specify that inode allocation is or is not aligned. The value is either 0 or 1, with 1 signifying that inodes are allocated aligned. If the value is omitted, 1 is assumed. The default is that inodes are aligned. Aligned inode access is normally more efficient than unaligned access; alignment must be established at the time the filesystem is created, since inodes are allocated at that time. This option can be used to turn off inode alignment when the filesystem needs to be mountable by a version of IRIX that does not have the inode alignment feature (any release of IRIX before 6.2, and IRIX 6.2 without XFS patches). The option attr[=value] is used to specify the version of extended attribute inline allocation policy to be used. By default, this is zero. Once extended attributes are used for the first time, the version will be set to either one or two. The current version (two) uses a more efficient algorithm for managing the available inline inode space than version one does, however, for backward compatibility reasons (and in the absence of the attr=2 mkfs option, or the attr2 mount option), version one will be selected by default when attributes are first used on a filesystem. The option parent[=value] is used to specify that links to the inode's parents and associated directory entry names are stored. The value is either 0 or 1, with 1 turning this feature on and 0 turning this feature off. The default value is 0. This option can be used to map inodes to paths without requiring the search of directories to find the inode. -l Log section options. These options specify the location, size, and other parameters of the log section of the filesystem. The valid suboptions are: internal[=value], size=value, version=[1|2], sunit=value, su=value and lazy-count=[0|1]. The internal suboption is used to specify that the log section is a piece of the data section instead of being a separate part of an XLV/XVM logical volume. The suboption value is either 0 or 1, with 1 signifying that the log is internal. If the value is omitted, 1 is assumed. The size suboption is used to specify the size of the log section. This suboption is required if -l internal[=1] is given. Otherwise, it is only needed if the log section of the filesystem should occupy less space than the size of the special file. The size is specified in bytes or blocks, with a b suffix meaning multiplication by the filesystem block size, as described above. The overriding minimum value for size is 512 blocks. With some combinations of filesystem block size, inode size, and directory block size, the minimum log size is larger than 512 blocks. For a filesystem which is not contained in an XLV/XVM logical volume with a log subvolume, the default is to make an internal log 1000 blocks long, or longer with some combinations of filesystem block size, inode size, and directory block size. For a filesystem which is contained in a XLV/XVM striped logical volume, the default internal log size is rounded up to a multiple of the data stripe unit size. If a log stripe unit is specified, then the log size is rounded up to a multiple of the log stripe unit instead. If the user specified a size value, then it must be a multiple of the log stripe size if log striping is used, otherwise it must be a multiple of the data stripe size if data striping is used. Using the version suboption to specify a version 2 log enables the sunit suboption, and allows the logbsize mount option (see fstab(4)) to be increased beyond 32K. Version 2 logs are automatically selected if a log stripe unit is specified. See sunit and su suboptions, below. The sunit suboption specifies the alignment to be used for log writes. The suboption value has to be specified in 512-byte block units. Use the su suboption to specify the log stripe unit size in bytes. Log writes will be aligned on this boundary, and rounded up to this boundary. This gives major improvements in performance on some configurations. The equivalent byte value must be a multiple of the filesystem block size. Version 2 logs are automatically selected if the log su suboption is specified. The su suboption is an alternative to using sunit. The su suboption is used to specify the log stripe. The suboption value has to be specified in bytes, (usually using the s or b suffixes). This value must be a multiple of the filesystem block size. Version 2 logs are automatically selected if the log su suboption is specified. The lazy-count suboption changes the method of logging various persistent counters in the superblock. Under metadata intensive workloads, these counters are updated and logged frequently enough that the superblock updates become a serialisation point in the filesystem. With lazy-count=1, the superblock is not modified or logged on every change of the persistent counters. Instead, enough information is kept in other parts of the filesystem to be able to maintain the persistent counter values without needed to keep them in the superblock. This gives significant improvements in performance on some configurations. The default value is 0 (off) so you must specify lazy-count=1 if you want to make use of this feature. -n Naming options. These options specify the version and size parameters for the naming (directory) area of the filesystem. The valid suboptions are: log=value, size=value, and version=value. The naming (directory) version is 1, 2 or 'ci', defaulting to 2 if unspecified. With version 2 directories, the directory block size can be any power of 2 size from the filesystem block size up to 65536. The block size is specified either as a base two logarithm value with log=, or in bytes with size=. The default size value for version 2 directories is 4096 bytes (4 KB), unless the filesystem block size is larger than 4096, in which case the default value is the filesystem block size. For version 1 directories the block size is the same as the filesystem block size. Note that you must use V1 directories in the rare case that your filesystems are expected to be moved to computers running IRIX releases older than IRIX 6.5.5. Such older releases of IRIX will not be able to mount a filesystem created with V2 directories and will issue the message "Wrong filesystem type: xfs" when a mount is attempted. The version=ci suboption enables case-insensitive filenames and version 2 directories. Filenames will be stored in directories as they were created, but all file or directory name searches will be case-insensitive. This feature is normally used only when doing file serving to Windows clients. Note that NMC directories are not available on systems older than IRIX 6.5.22. Such older releases of IRIX will not be able to mount a filesystem created with NMC directories and will issue the message "Wrong filesystem type: xfs" when a mount is attempted. -p protofile If the optional -p protofile argument is given, mkfs_xfs uses protofile as a prototype file and takes its directions from that file. The blocks and inodes specifiers in the protofile are provided for backwards compatibility, but are otherwise unused. The prototype file contains tokens separated by spaces or newlines. A sample prototype specification follows (line numbers have been added to aid in the explanation): 1 /stand/diskboot 2 4872 110 3 d--777 3 1 4 usr d--777 3 1 5 sh ---755 3 1 /bin/sh 6 ken d--755 6 1 7 $ 8 b0 b--644 3 1 0 0 9 c0 c--644 3 1 0 0 10 fifo p--644 3 1 11 slink l--644 3 1 /a/symbolic/link 12 : This is a comment line 13 $ 14 $ Line 1 is a dummy string. (It was formerly the bootfilename.) It is present for backward compatibility; boot blocks are not used on SGI systems. Note that some string of characters must be present as the first line of the proto file to cause it to be parsed correctly; the value of this string is immaterial since it is ignored. Line 2 contains two numeric values (formerly the numbers of blocks and inodes). These are also merely for backward compatibility: two numeric values must appear at this point for the proto file to be correctly parsed, but their values are immaterial since they are ignored. Lines 3-11 tell mkfs_xfs about files and directories to be included in this filesystem. Line 3 specifies the root directory. Lines 4-6 and 8-10 specifies other directories and files. Note the special symbolic link syntax on line 11. The $ on line 7 tells mkfs_xfs to end the branch of the filesystem it is on, and continue from the next higher directory. It must be the last character on a line. The colon on line 12 introduces a comment; all characters up until the following newline are ignored. Note that this means you cannot have a file in a prototype file whose name contains a colon. The $ on lines 13 and 14 end the process, since no additional specifications follow. File specifications give the mode, the user ID, the group ID, and the initial contents of the file. Valid syntax for the contents field depends on the first character of the mode. The mode for a file is specified by a 6-character string. The first character specifies the type of the file. The character range is -bcdpl to specify regular, block special, character special, directory files, named pipes (fifos), and symbolic links, respectively. The second character of the mode is either u or - to specify setuserID mode or not. The third is g or - for the setgroupID mode. The rest of the mode is a three digit octal number giving the owner, group, and other read, write, execute permissions (see chmod(1)). Two decimal number tokens come after the mode; they specify the user and group IDs of the owner of the file. If the file is a regular file, the next token of the specification can be a pathname from which the contents and size are copied. If the file is a block or character special file, two decimal numbers follow that give the major and minor device numbers. If the file is a symbolic link, the next token of the specification is used as the contents of the link. If the file is a directory, mkfs_xfs makes the entries . and .. and then reads a list of names and (recursively) file specifications for the entries in the directory. As noted above, the scan is terminated with the token $. -q Quiet option. Normally mkfs_xfs prints the parameters of the filesystem to be constructed; the -q flag suppresses this. -r Real-time section options. These options specify the location, size, and other parameters of the real-time section of the filesystem. The valid suboptions are: extsize=value and size=value. The extsize suboption is used to specify the size of the blocks in the real-time section of the filesystem. This size must be a multiple of the filesystem block size. The minimum allowed value is the filesystem block size or 4 KB (whichever is larger); the default value is the stripe width for striped volumes or 64 KB for non- striped volumes; the maximum allowed value is 1 GB. The real-time extent size should be carefully chosen to match the parameters of the physical media used. The size suboption is used to specify the size of the real-time section. This suboption is only needed if the real-time section of the filesystem should occupy less space than the size of the XLV/XVM real-time subvolume. -C Disable overlapping partition/volume checks. By default mkfs_xfs checks to see if the destination partition or logical volume overlaps any mounted or reserved partitions in the system. If an overlap or mount conflict is found, the user will be notified and prevented from potentially corrupting the existing data. For systems with a large number of disks, this additional checking may add noticable overhead to the command's execution time. For situations where command performance is necessary, this switch may be used to disable the safeguards. Due to the potential for user-error causing corrupted filesystems or other on-disk data corruption, we strongly discourage use of this switch in normal operation. SEE ALSO mkfs(1M), mkfs_efs(1M). BUGS With a prototype file, it is not possible to specify hard links. Page 9