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NEWFS(8) BSD System Manager's Manual NEWFS(8) NAME newfs -- construct a new UFS1/UFS2 file system SYNOPSIS newfs [-NU] [-L volname] [-O filesystem-type] [-S sector-size] [-T disktype] [-a maxcontig] [-b block-size] [-c blocks-per-cylinder-group] [-d max-extent-size] [-e maxbpg] [-f frag-size] [-g avgfilesize] [-h avgfpdir] [-i bytes] [-m free-space] [-o optimization] [-s size] special DESCRIPTION The newfs utility is used to initialize and clear file systems before first use. Before running newfs the disk must be labeled using bsdlabel(8). The newfs utility builds a file system on the specified special file. (We often refer to the "special file" as the "disk", al- though the special file need not be a physical disk. In fact, it need not even be special.) Typically the defaults are reasonable, however newfs has numerous options to allow the defaults to be selectively over- ridden. The following options define the general layout policies: -L volname Add a volume label to the new file system. -N Cause the file system parameters to be printed out without really creating the file system. -O filesystem-type Use 1 to specify that a UFS1 format file system be built; use 2 to specify that a UFS2 format file system be built. The default format is UFS2. -T disktype For backward compatibility. -U Enables soft updates on the new file system. -a maxcontig Specify the maximum number of contiguous blocks that will be laid out before forcing a rotational delay. The default value is 16. See tunefs(8) for more details on how to set this option. -b 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 allow- able size is 4096 bytes. The optimal block:fragment ratio is 8:1. Other ratios are possible, but are not recommended, and may produce poor results. -c blocks-per-cylinder-group The number of blocks per cylinder group in a file system. The default is to compute the maximum allowed by the other parame- ters. This value is dependent on a number of other parameters, in particular the block size and the number of bytes per inode. -d max-extent-size The file system may choose to store large files using extents. This parameter specifies the largest extent size that may be used. It is presently limited to its default value which is 16 times the file system blocksize. -e maxbpg Indicate the maximum number of blocks any single file can allo- cate out of a cylinder group before it is forced to begin allo- cating blocks from another cylinder group. The default is about one quarter of the total blocks in a cylinder group. See tunefs(8) for more details on how to set this option. -f frag-size The fragment size of the file system in bytes. It must be a power of two ranging in value between blocksize/8 and blocksize. The default is 2048 bytes. -g avgfilesize The expected average file size for the file system. -h avgfpdir The expected average number of files per directory on the file system. -i bytes Specify the density of inodes in the file system. The default is to create an inode for every (4 * 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. -m free-space The percentage of space reserved from normal users; the minimum free space threshold. The default value used is defined by MINFREE from <ufs/ffs/fs.h>, currently 8%. See tunefs(8) for more details on how to set this option. -o optimization (space or time). The file system can either be instructed to try to minimize the time spent allocating blocks, or to try to mini- mize the space fragmentation on the disk. If the value of min- free (see above) is less than 8%, the default is to optimize for space; if the value of minfree is greater than or equal to 8%, the default is to optimize for time. See tunefs(8) for more de- tails on how to set this option. -s size The size of the file system in sectors. This value defaults to the size of the raw partition specified in special (in other words, newfs will use the entire partition for the file system). The following options override the standard sizes for the disk geometry. Their default values are taken from the disk label. Changing these de- faults is useful only when using newfs 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 impos- sible for fsck(8) to find the alternate superblocks if the standard su- perblock is lost. -S sector-size The size of a sector in bytes (almost never anything but 512). EXAMPLES newfs /dev/ad3s1a Creates a new ufs file system on ad3s1a. The newfs utility will use a block size of 16384 bytes, a fragment size of 2048 bytes and the largest possible number of blocks per cylinders group. These values tend to pro- duce better performance for most applications than the historical de- faults (8192 byte block size and 1024 byte fragment size). This large fragment size may lead to much wasted space on file systems that contain many small files. SEE ALSO fdformat(1), disktab(5), fs(5), camcontrol(8), bsdlabel(8), dumpfs(8), fsck(8), mount(8), tunefs(8), vinum(8) M. McKusick, W. Joy, S. Leffler, and R. Fabry, "A Fast File System for UNIX", ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 2, 3, pp 181-197, August 1984, (reprinted in the BSD System Manager's Manual). HISTORY The newfs utility appeared in 4.2BSD. BSD May 18, 2002 BSD
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