freebsd/sbin/newfs/newfs.8

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.\"     @(#)newfs.8	8.6 (Berkeley) 5/3/95
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd May 29, 2001
.Dt NEWFS 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm newfs ,
.Nd construct a new file system
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl NOU
.Op Fl S Ar sector-size
.Op Fl T Ar disktype
.Op Fl a Ar maxcontig
.Op Fl b Ar block-size
.Op Fl c Ar cylinders
.Op Fl d Ar rotdelay
.Op Fl e Ar maxbpg
.Op Fl f Ar frag-size
.Op Fl g Ar avgfilesize
.Op Fl h Ar avfpdir
.Op Fl i Ar bytes
.Op Fl k Ar skew
.Op Fl l Ar interleave
.Op Fl m Ar free space
.Op Fl n Ar rotational positions
.Op Fl o Ar optimization
.Op Fl p Ar sectors
.Op Fl r Ar revolutions
.Op Fl s Ar size
.Op Fl t Ar tracks
.Op Fl u Ar sectors
.Op Fl v
.Op Fl x Ar sectors
.Ar special
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm Newfs
is used to initialize and clear filesystems before first use.
Before running
.Nm
the disk must be labeled using
.Xr disklabel 8 .
.Nm Newfs
builds a file system on the specified special file.
(We often refer to the
.Dq special file
as the
.Dq disk ,
although the special file need not be a physical disk.
In fact, it need not even be special.)
Typically the defaults are reasonable, however
.Nm
has numerous options to allow the defaults to be selectively overridden.
.Pp
The following options define the general layout policies:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl T Ar disktype
For backward compatibility.
.It Fl N
Cause the file system parameters to be printed out
without really creating the file system.
.It Fl O
Create a
.Bx 4.3
format filesystem.
This options is primarily used to build root filesystems
that can be understood by older boot ROMs.
.It Fl U
Enables soft updates on the new filesystem.
.It Fl a Ar maxcontig
Specify the maximum number of contiguous blocks that will be
laid out before forcing a rotational delay (see the
.Fl d
option).
The default value is 1.
See
.Xr tunefs 8
for more details on how to set this option.
.It Fl b Ar block-size
The block size of the file system, in bytes.  It must be a power of 2.  The
default size is 16384 bytes, and the smallest allowable size is 4096 bytes.
The optimal block:fragment ratio is 8:1.
Other ratios are possible, but are not recommended,
and may produce unpredictable results.
.It Fl c Ar #cylinders/group
The number of cylinders per cylinder group in a file system.  The default
is to compute the maximum allowed by the other parameters.  This value is
dependent on a number of other parameters, in particular the block size
and the number of bytes per inode.
.It Fl d Ar rotdelay
This parameter once specified the minimum time in milliseconds required to
initiate another disk transfer on the same cylinder.  It was used in determining
the rotationally optimal layout for disk blocks within a file.  Modern disks
with read/write-behind achieve higher performance with this feature disabled, so
this value should be left at the default value of 0 milliseconds.  See
.Xr tunefs 8
for more details on how to set this option.
.It Fl e Ar maxbpg
Indicate the maximum number of blocks any single file can
allocate out of a cylinder group before it is forced to begin
allocating blocks from another cylinder group.
The default is about one quarter of the total blocks in a cylinder group.
See
.Xr tunefs 8
for more details on how to set this option.
.It Fl f Ar frag-size
The fragment size of the file system in bytes.  It must be a power of two
ranging in value between
.Ar blocksize Ns /8
and
.Ar blocksize .
The default is 2048 bytes.
.It Fl g Ar avgfilesize
The expected average file size for the file system.
.It Fl h Ar avgfpdir
The expected average number of files per directory on the file system.
.It Fl i Ar number of bytes per inode
Specify the density of inodes in the file system.
The default is to create an inode for every
.Pq 4 * Ar frag-size
bytes of data space.
If fewer inodes are desired, a larger number should be used;
to create more inodes a smaller number should be given.
One inode is required for each distinct file, so this value effectively
specifies the average file size on the file system.
.It Fl m Ar free space \&%
The percentage of space reserved from normal users; the minimum free
space threshold.
The default value used is
defined by
.Dv MINFREE
from
.Aq Pa ufs/ffs/fs.h ,
currently 8%.
See
.Xr tunefs 8
for more details on how to set this option.
.It Fl n Ar number of distinguished rotational positions
UFS has the ability to keep track of the availability of blocks at different
rotational positions, so that it could lay out the data to be picked up with
minimum rotational latency.  This parameter specifies the default number of
rotational positions to distinguish.
.Pp
Nowadays this value should be set to 1 (which essentially disables the
rotational position table) because modern drives with read-ahead and
write-behind do better without the rotational position table.
.It Fl o Ar optimization\ preference
.Pq Ar space No or Ar time .
The file system can either be instructed to try to minimize the time spent
allocating blocks, or to try to minimize the space fragmentation on the disk.
If the value of minfree (see above) is less than 8%,
the default is to optimize for
.Ar space ;
if the value of minfree is greater than or equal to 8%,
the default is to optimize for
.Ar time .
See
.Xr tunefs 8
for more details on how to set this option.
.It Fl s Ar size
The size of the file system in sectors.  This value defaults to the size of the
raw partition specified in
.Ar special
(in other words,
.Nm
will use the entire partition for the file system).
.It Fl v
Specify that the disk does not contain any partitions, and that
.Nm
should build a file system on the whole disk.
This option is useful for synthetic disks such as
.Nm vinum .
.El
.Pp
The following options override the standard sizes for the disk geometry.
Their default values are taken from the disk label.
Changing these defaults is useful only when using
.Nm
to build a file system whose raw image will eventually be used on a
different type of disk than the one on which it is initially created
(for example on a write-once disk).
Note that changing any of these values from their defaults will make
it impossible for
.Xr fsck 8
to find the alternate superblocks if the standard superblock is lost.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl S Ar sector-size
The size of a sector in bytes (almost never anything but 512).
.It Fl k Ar sector \&0 skew , per track
Used to describe perturbations in the media format to compensate for
a slow controller.
Track skew is the offset of sector 0 on track N relative to sector 0
on track N-1 on the same cylinder.
This option is of historical importance only; modern controllers are always fast
enough to handle operations back-to-back.
.It Fl l Ar hardware sector interleave
Used to describe perturbations in the media format to compensate for
a slow controller.
Interleave is physical sector interleave on each track,
specified as the denominator of the ratio:
.Dl sectors read/sectors passed over
Thus an interleave of 1/1 implies contiguous layout, while 1/2 implies
logical sector 0 is separated by one sector from logical sector 1.
This option is of historical importance only; the physical sector layout of
modern disks is not visible from outside.
.It Fl p Ar spare sectors per track
Spare sectors (bad sector replacements) are physical sectors that occupy
space at the end of each track.
They are not counted as part of the sectors/track
.Pq Fl u
since they are not available to the file system for data allocation.
This option is of historical importance only.  Modern disks perform their own
bad sector allocation.
.It Fl r Ar revolutions/minute
The speed of the disk in revolutions per minute.  This value is no longer of
interest, since all the parameters which depend on it are usually disabled.
.It Fl t Ar #tracks/cylinder
The number of tracks/cylinder available for data allocation by the file
system.
The default is 1.
If zero is specified, the value from the disklabel will be used.
.It Fl u Ar sectors/track
The number of sectors per track available for data allocation by the file
system.
The default is 4096.
If zero is specified, the value from the disklabel will be used.
This does not include sectors reserved at the end of each track for bad
block replacement (see the
.Fl p
option).
.It Fl x Ar spare sectors per cylinder
Spare sectors (bad sector replacements) are physical sectors that occupy
space at the end of the last track in the cylinder.
They are deducted from the sectors/track
.Pq Fl u
of the last track of each cylinder since they are not available to the file
system for data allocation.
This option is of historical importance only.  Modern disks perform their own
bad sector allocation.
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
.Dl newfs /dev/ad3s1a
.Pp
Creates a new ufs file system on
.Pa ad3s1a .
.Nm
will use a block size of 16384 bytes, a fragment size of 2048 bytes
and the largest possible number of cylinders per group.
These values tend to produce better performance for most applications
than the historical defaults
(8192 byte block size and 1024 byte fragment size).
This large fragment size
may lead to large amounts of wasted space
on filesystems that contain a large number of small files.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr fdformat 1 ,
.Xr disktab 5 ,
.Xr fs 5 ,
.Xr camcontrol 8 ,
.Xr disklabel 8 ,
.Xr diskpart 8 ,
.Xr dumpfs 8 ,
.Xr fsck 8 ,
.Xr mount 8 ,
.Xr tunefs 8 ,
.Xr vinum 8
.Rs
.%A M. McKusick
.%A W. Joy
.%A S. Leffler
.%A R. Fabry
.%T A Fast File System for UNIX
.%J ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 2
.%V 3
.%P pp 181-197
.%D August 1984
.%O (reprinted in the BSD System Manager's Manual)
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command appeared in
.Bx 4.2 .