MAKEFS(8) System Manager's Manual MAKEFS(8)

makefs
create a file system image from a directory tree

makefs [-rxZ] [-B endian] [-b free-blocks] [-d debug-mask] [-F mtree-specfile] [-f free-files] [-M minimum-size] [-m maximum-size] [-N userdb-dir] [-O offset] [-o fs-options] [-S sector-size] [-s image-size] [-T timestamp] [-t fs-type] image-file directory [extra-directory ...]

The utility makefs creates a file system image into image-file from the directory tree directory. If any optional directory trees are passed in the extra-directory arguments, then the directory tree of each argument will be merged into the directory first before creating image-file. No special devices or privileges are required to perform this task.

The options are as follows:

endian
Set the byte order of the image to endian. Valid byte orders are ‘4321’, ‘big’, or ‘be’ for big endian, and ‘1234’, ‘little’, or ‘le’ for little endian. Some file systems may have a fixed byte order; in those cases this argument will be ignored.
free-blocks
Ensure that a minimum of free-blocks free blocks exist in the image. An optional ‘%’ suffix may be provided to indicate that free-blocks indicates a percentage of the calculated image size.
debug-mask
Enable various levels of debugging, depending upon which bits are set in debug-mask. XXX: document these
mtree-specfile
Use mtree-specfile as an mtree(8) ‘specfile’ specification.

If a specfile entry exists in the underlying file system, its permissions and modification time will be used unless specifically overridden by the specfile. An error will be raised if the type of entry in the specfile conflicts with that of an existing entry.

In the opposite case (where a specfile entry does not have an entry in the underlying file system) the following occurs: If the specfile entry is marked optional, the specfile entry is ignored. Otherwise, the entry will be created in the image, and it is necessary to specify at least the following parameters in the specfile: type, mode, gname, or gid, and uname or uid, device (in the case of block or character devices), and link (in the case of symbolic links). If time isn't provided, the current time will be used. If flags isn't provided, the current file flags will be used. Missing regular file entries will be created as zero-length files.

free-files
Ensure that a minimum of free-files free files (inodes) exist in the image. An optional ‘%’ suffix may be provided to indicate that free-files indicates a percentage of the calculated image size.
minimum-size
Set the minimum size of the file system image to minimum-size.
maximum-size
Set the maximum size of the file system image to maximum-size. An error will be raised if the target file system needs to be larger than this to accommodate the provided directory tree.
userdb-dir
Use the user database text file master.passwd and group database text file group from userdb-dir, rather than using the results from the system's getpwnam(3) and getgrnam(3) (and related) library calls.
offset
Instead of creating the file system at the beginning of the file, start at offset. Valid only for ffs and msdos.
fs-options
Set file system specific options. fs-options is a comma separated list of options. Valid file system specific options are detailed below.
When merging multiple directories replace duplicate files with the last found.
sector-size
Set the file system sector size to sector-size. Defaults to 512.
image-size
Set the size of the file system image to image-size. This is equivalent of setting both the minimum (-m) and the maximum (-M) sizes to image-size. For ffs and msdos the offset is not included on that size.
timestamp
Specify a timestamp to be set for all file system files and directories created so that repeatable builds are possible. The timestamp can be a pathname, where the timestamps are derived from that file, a parseable date for parsedate(3) (this option is not yet available in the tools build), or an integer value interpreted as the number of seconds from the Epoch. Note that timestamps specified in an mtree(5) spec file, override the default timestamp. When this option is enabled, file systems that regularly use localtime(3) to convert times to the native format (such as udf and cd9660), use gmtime(3) instead with the specified timestamps so that they are immune to timezone changes and get consistent timestamps.
fs-type
Create an fs-type file system image. The following file system types are supported:
cd9660
ISO 9660 file system.
chfs
Chip flash file system.
ffs
BSD fast file system (default).
msdos
FAT12, FAT16, or FAT32 file system.
udf
ISO/Ecma UDF file system.
v7fs
7th Edition(V7) file system.
Exclude file system nodes not explicitly listed in the specfile.
Create a sparse file for ffs. This is useful for virtual machine images.

Where sizes are specified, a decimal number of bytes is expected. Two or more numbers may be separated by an ‘x’ to indicate a product. Each number may have one of the following optional suffixes:

b
Block; multiply by 512
k
Kibi; multiply by 1024 (1 KiB)
m
Mebi; multiply by 1048576 (1 MiB)
g
Gibi; multiply by 1073741824 (1 GiB)
t
Tebi; multiply by 1099511627776 (1 TiB)
w
Word; multiply by the number of bytes in an integer

ffs images have ffs-specific optional parameters that may be provided. Each of the options consists of a keyword, an equal sign (‘=’), and a value. The following keywords are supported:

avgfilesize
Expected average file size.
avgfpdir
Expected number of files per directory.
bsize
Block size.
density
Bytes per inode.
extent
Maximum extent size.
fsize
Fragment size.
label
Label name of the image.
maxbpcg
Maximum total number of blocks in a cylinder group.
maxbpg
Maximum blocks per file in a cylinder group.
minfree
Minimum % free.
optimization
Optimization preference; one of ‘space’ or ‘time’.
version
UFS version. 1 for FFS (default), 2 for UFS2.

cd9660 images have ISO9660-specific optional parameters that may be provided. The arguments consist of a keyword and, optionally, an equal sign (‘=’), and a value. The following keywords are supported:

allow-deep-trees
Allow the directory structure to exceed the maximum specified in the spec.
allow-max-name
Allow 37 instead of 33 characters for filenames by omitting the version ID.
allow-multidot
Allow multiple dots in a filename.
applicationid
Application ID of the image.
archimedes
Use the ‘ARCHIMEDES’ extension to encode RISC OS metadata.
boot-load-segment
Set load segment for the boot image.
bootimage
Filename of a boot image in the format “sysid;filename”, where “sysid” is one of ‘i386’, ‘mac68k’, ‘macppc’, or ‘powerpc’.
chrp-boot
Write an MBR partition table to the image to allow older CHRP hardware to boot.
generic-bootimage
Load a generic boot image into the first 32K of the cd9660 image.
hard-disk-boot
Boot image is a hard disk image.
keep-bad-images
Don't throw away images whose write was aborted due to an error. For debugging purposes.
label
Label name of the image.
no-boot
Boot image is not bootable.
no-emul-boot
Boot image is a “no emulation” ElTorito image.
no-trailing-padding
Do not pad the image (apparently Linux needs the padding).
platformid
Set platform ID of section header entry of the boot image.
preparer
Preparer ID of the image.
publisher
Publisher ID of the image.
rockridge
Use RockRidge extensions (for longer filenames, etc.).
volumeid
Volume set identifier of the image.

chfs images have chfs-specific optional parameters that may be provided. Each of the options consists of a keyword, an equal sign (‘=’), and a value. The following keywords are supported:

pagesize
Pagesize.
erasesize
Erase block size of the media.
mediatype
Type of the media. NOR: 0 or NAND: 1.

msdos images have MS-DOS-specific optional parameters that may be provided. The arguments consist of a keyword, an equal sign (‘=’), and a value. The following keywords are supported (see newfs_msdos(8) for more details):

Location of the backup boot sector.
Block size.
Bootstrap file.
Bytes per sector.
Create file size.
Directory entries.
Drive heads.
FAT type (12, 16, or 32).
Preset drive parameters for standard format floppy disks (160, 180, 320, 360, 640, 720, 1200, 1232, 1440, or 2880).
Hidden sectors.
Location of the info sector.
Media descriptor.
Number of FATs.
OEM string.
Offset in device.
Reserved sectors.
Sectors per cluster.
Sectors per FAT.
Sectors per track.
File System size.
Volume ID.
Volume Label.

The following keywords are supported:

pdp
PDP endian.
progress
Display a progress meter for the file system construction and file population.

udf images have udf-specific optional parameters that may be provided. Each of the options consists of a keyword, an equal sign (‘=’), and a value. The following keywords are supported:

disctype
This can have the following values:
cdrom, dvdrom, bdrom
create a read-only fs
dvdram, bdre, disk
create a rewritable fs without sparing for defective sectors
cdr, dvdr, bdr
create a rewritable fs on once recordable media using a VAT
cdrw, dvdrw
create a rewritable fs with sparing for defective sectors
When an optical media is selected here, the sectorsize and the default disc size is assumed unless given explicitly. For rom images the disc size is the minimum needed.
loglabel
Set the logical volume label of the disc to the specified argument.
discid
Set the physical volume label of the disc to the specified argument. Prepend the physical volume label with a volumeset label separated with a ':' if wanted. For strict conformance and interchange, don't set the volumeset label manually unless it has an unique hex number in the first 8 character positions.
minver
Set the minimum UDF version to be used. Choose UDF version numbers from 0x102, 0x150, 0x200, and 0x201. Versions 0x250 and 0x260 are currently not supported in makefs.

strsuftoll(3), installboot(8), mtree(8), newfs(8)

The makefs utility appeared in NetBSD 1.6.

Luke Mewburn ⟨lukem@NetBSD.org⟩ (original program),
Daniel Watt,
Walter Deignan,
Ryan Gabrys,
Alan Perez-Rathke,
Ram Vedam (cd9660 support),
UCHIYAMA Yasushi (v7fs support),
Tamas Toth (chfs support),
Christos Zoulas (msdos support),
Reinoud Zandijk (udf support).
April 13, 2017 NetBSD 9.4