SFDISK(8) System Administration SFDISK(8)
NAME
sfdisk - partition table manipulator for Linux
SYNOPSIS
sfdisk [options] device
sfdisk -s [partition]
DESCRIPTION
sfdisk has four (main) uses: list the size of a partition, list the
partitions on a device, check the partitions on a device, and - very
dangerous - repartition a device.
sfdisk doesn't understand the GUID Partition Table (GPT) format and it
is not designed for large partitions. In these cases use the more
advanced GNU parted(8).
Note that sfdisk does not align partitions to block device I/O limits.
This functionality is provided by fdisk(8).
List sizes
sfdisk -s partition gives the size of partition in blocks. This may be
useful in connection with programs like mkswap(8). Here partition is
usually something like /dev/hda1 or /dev/sdb12, but may also be an
entire disk, like /dev/xda.
% sfdisk -s /dev/hda9
81599
If the partition argument is omitted, sfdisk will list the sizes of all
block devices, and the total:
% sfdisk -s
/dev/hda: 208896
/dev/hdb: 1025136
/dev/hdc: 1031063
/dev/sda: 8877895
/dev/sdb: 1758927
total: 12901917 blocks
List partitions
The second type of invocation: sfdisk -l device will list the parti-
tions on the specified device. If the device argument is omitted, the
partitions on all block devices are listed.
% sfdisk -l /dev/hdc
Disk /dev/hdc: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 2045 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0
Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 0+ 406 407- 205096+ 83 Linux native
/dev/hdc2 407 813 407 205128 83 Linux native
/dev/hdc3 814 2044 1231 620424 83 Linux native
/dev/hdc4 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
The trailing - and + signs indicate that rounding has taken place, and
that the actual value is slightly less or more. To see the exact val-
ues, ask for a listing with sectors as unit (-u S).
Check partitions
The third type of invocation: sfdisk -V device will apply various con-
sistency checks to the partition tables on device. It prints `OK' or
complains. The -V option can be used together with -l. In a shell
script one might use sfdisk -V -q device which only returns a status.
Create partitions
The fourth type of invocation: sfdisk device will cause sfdisk to read
the specification for the desired partitioning of device from standard
input, and then to change the partition tables on that block device.
Thus it is possible to use sfdisk from a shell script. When sfdisk
determines that its standard input is a terminal, it will be conversa-
tional; otherwise it will abort on any error.
BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL - ONE TYPING MISTAKE AND ALL YOUR DATA IS LOST
As a precaution, one can save the sectors changed by sfdisk:
% sfdisk /dev/hdd -O hdd-partition-sectors.save
...
Then, if you discover that you did something stupid before anything
else has been written to the block device, it may be possible to
recover the old situation with:
% sfdisk /dev/hdd -I hdd-partition-sectors.save
(This is not the same as saving the old partition table: a readable
version of the old partition table can be saved using the -d option.
However, if you create logical partitions, the sectors describing them
are located somewhere on block device, possibly on sectors that were
not part of the partition table before. Thus, the information the -O
option saves is not a binary version of the output of -d.)
There are many options.
OPTIONS
-v, --version
Print version number of sfdisk and exit immediately.
-h, --help
Print a usage message and exit immediately.
-T, --list-types
Print the recognized types (system Id's).
-s, --show-size
List the size of a partition.
-g, --show-geometry
List the kernel's idea of the geometry of the indicated block
device(s).
-G, --show-pt-geometry
List the geometry of the indicated block devices guessed by
looking at the partition table.
-l, --list
List the partitions of a device.
-d, --dump
Dump the partitions of a device in a format that is usable as
input to sfdisk. For example,
% sfdisk -d /dev/hda > hda.out
% sfdisk /dev/hda < hda.out
will correct the bad last extended partition that the OS/2 fdisk
creates.
-V, --verify
Test whether partitions seem correct. (See the third invocation
type above.)
-i, --increment
Number cylinders etc. starting from 1 instead of 0.
-N number
Change only the single partition indicated. For example:
% sfdisk /dev/hdb -N5
,,,*
will make the fifth partition on /dev/hdb bootable (`active')
and change nothing else. (Probably this fifth partition is
called /dev/hdb5, but you are free to call it something else,
like `/my_equipment/disks/2/5' or so).
-A, --activate number
Make the indicated partition(s) active, and all others inactive.
-c, --id number [Id]
If no Id argument given: print the partition Id of the indicated
partition. If an Id argument is present: change the type (Id)
of the indicated partition to the given value. This option has
two longer forms, --print-id and --change-id. For example:
% sfdisk --print-id /dev/hdb 5
6
% sfdisk --change-id /dev/hdb 5 83
OK
first reports that /dev/hdb5 has Id 6, and then changes that
into 83.
-u, --unit letter
Interpret the input and show the output in the units specified
by letter. This letter can be one of S, C, B or M, meaning Sec-
tors, Cylinders, Blocks and Megabytes, respectively. The
default is cylinders, at least when the geometry is known.
-x, --show-extended
Also list non-primary extended partitions on output, and expect
descriptors for them on input.
-C, --cylinders cylinders
Specify the number of cylinders, possibly overriding what the
kernel thinks.
-H, --heads heads
Specify the number of heads, possibly overriding what the kernel
thinks.
-S, --sectors sectors
Specify the number of sectors, possibly overriding what the ker-
nel thinks.
-f, --force
Do what I say, even if it is stupid.
-q, --quiet
Suppress warning messages.
-L, --Linux
Do not complain about things irrelevant for Linux.
-D, --DOS
For DOS-compatibility: waste a little space. (More precisely:
if a partition cannot contain sector 0, e.g. because that is the
MBR of the device, or contains the partition table of an
extended partition, then sfdisk would make it start the next
sector. However, when this option is given it skips to the
start of the next track, wasting for example 33 sectors (in case
of 34 sectors/track), just like certain versions of DOS do.)
Certain Disk Managers and boot loaders (such as OSBS, but not
LILO or the OS/2 Boot Manager) also live in this empty space, so
maybe you want this option if you use one.
-E, --DOS-extended
Take the starting sector numbers of "inner" extended partitions
to be relative to the starting cylinder boundary of the outer
one (like some versions of DOS do), rather than relative to the
actual starting sector (like Linux does). (The fact that there
is a difference here means that one should always let extended
partitions start at cylinder boundaries if DOS and Linux should
interpret the partition table in the same way. Of course one
can only know where cylinder boundaries are when one knows what
geometry DOS will use for this block device.)
--IBM, --leave-last
Certain IBM diagnostic programs assume that they can use the
last cylinder on a device for disk-testing purposes. If you
think you might ever run such programs, use this option to tell
sfdisk that it should not allocate the last cylinder. Sometimes
the last cylinder contains a bad sector table.
-n Go through all the motions, but do not actually write to block
device.
-R, --re-read
Only execute the BLKRRPART ioctl (to make the kernel re-read the
partition table). This can be useful for checking in advance
that the final BLKRRPART will be successful, and also when you
changed the partition table `by hand' (e.g., using dd from a
backup). If the kernel complains (`device busy for revalidation
(usage = 2)') then something still uses the device, and you
still have to unmount some file system, or say swapoff to some
swap partition.
--no-reread
When starting a repartitioning of a block device, sfdisk checks
that this device is not mounted, or in use as a swap device, and
refuses to continue if it is. This option suppresses the test.
(On the other hand, the -f option would force sfdisk to continue
even when this test fails.)
--in-order
Caution, see warning section. To be documented.
--not-in-order
Caution, see warning section. To be documented.
--inside-outer
Caution, see warning section. Chaining order.
--not-inside-outer
Caution, see warning section. Chaining order.
--nested
Caution, see warning section. Every partition is contained in
the surrounding partitions and is disjoint from all others.
--chained
Caution, see warning section. Every data partition is contained
in the surrounding partitions and disjoint from all others, but
extended partitions may lie outside (insofar as allowed by
all_logicals_inside_outermost_extended).
--onesector
Caution, see warning section. All data partitions are mutually
disjoint; extended partitions each use one sector only (except
perhaps for the outermost one).
-O file
Just before writing the new partition, output the sectors that
are going to be overwritten to file (where hopefully file
resides on another block device, or on a floppy).
-I file
After destroying your filesystems with an unfortunate sfdisk
command, you would have been able to restore the old situation
if only you had preserved it using the -O flag.
THEORY
Block 0 of a block device (the Master Boot Record) contains among other
things four partition descriptors. The partitions described here are
called primary partitions.
A partition descriptor has 6 fields:
struct partition {
unsigned char bootable; /* 0 or 0x80 */
hsc begin_hsc;
unsigned char id;
hsc end_hsc;
unsigned int starting_sector;
unsigned int nr_of_sectors;
}
The two hsc fields indicate head, sector and cylinder of the begin and
the end of the partition. Since each hsc field only takes 3 bytes, only
24 bits are available, which does not suffice for big block devices
(say > 8GB). In fact, due to the wasteful representation (that uses a
byte for the number of heads, which is typically 16), problems already
start with 0.5GB. However Linux does not use these fields, and prob-
lems can arise only at boot time, before Linux has been started. For
more details, see the lilo documentation.
Each partition has a type, its `Id', and if this type is 5 or f
(`extended partition') the starting sector of the partition again con-
tains 4 partition descriptors. MSDOS only uses the first two of these:
the first one an actual data partition, and the second one again an
extended partition (or empty). In this way one gets a chain of
extended partitions. Other operating systems have slightly different
conventions. Linux also accepts type 85 as equivalent to 5 and f -
this can be useful if one wants to have extended partitions under Linux
past the 1024 cylinder boundary, without DOS FDISK hanging. (If there
is no good reason, you should just use 5, which is understood by other
systems.)
Partitions that are not primary or extended are called logical. Often,
one cannot boot from logical partitions (because the process of finding
them is more involved than just looking at the MBR). Note that of an
extended partition only the Id and the start are used. There are vari-
ous conventions about what to write in the other fields. One should not
try to use extended partitions for data storage or swap.
INPUT FORMAT
sfdisk reads lines of the form
<start> <size> <id> <bootable> <c,h,s> <c,h,s>
where each line fills one partition descriptor.
Fields are separated by whitespace, or comma or semicolon possibly fol-
lowed by whitespace; initial and trailing whitespace is ignored. Num-
bers can be octal, decimal or hexadecimal, decimal is default. When a
field is absent or empty, a default value is used.
The <c,h,s> parts can (and probably should) be omitted - sfdisk com-
putes them from <start> and <size> and the block device geometry as
given by the kernel or specified using the -H, -S, -C flags.
Bootable is specified as [*|-], with as default not-bootable. (The
value of this field is irrelevant for Linux - when Linux runs it has
been booted already - but might play a role for certain boot loaders
and for other operating systems. For example, when there are several
primary DOS partitions, DOS assigns C: to the first among these that is
bootable.)
Id is given in hex, without the 0x prefix, or is [E|S|L|X], where L
(LINUX_NATIVE (83)) is the default, S is LINUX_SWAP (82), E is
EXTENDED_PARTITION (5), and X is LINUX_EXTENDED (85).
The default value of start is the first nonassigned sector/cylinder/...
The default value of size is as much as possible (until next partition
or end-of-device).
However, for the four partitions inside an extended partition, the
defaults are: Linux partition, Extended partition, Empty, Empty.
But when the -N option (change a single partition only) is given, the
default for each field is its previous value.
A '+' can be specified instead of a number for size, which means as
much as possible. This is useful with the -N option.
EXAMPLE
The command
sfdisk /dev/hdc << EOF
0,407
,407
;
;
EOF
will partition /dev/hdc just as indicated above.
The command
sfdisk /dev/hdb << EOF
,3,L
,60,L
,19,S
,,E
,130,L
,130,L
,130,L
,,L
EOF
will partition /dev/hdb into two Linux partitions of 3 and 60 cylin-
ders, a swap space of 19 cylinders, and an extended partition covering
the rest. Inside the extended partition there are four Linux logical
partitions, three of 130 cylinders and one covering the rest.
With the -x option, the number of input lines must be a multiple of 4:
you have to list the two empty partitions that you never want using two
blank lines. Without the -x option, you give one line for the parti-
tions inside a extended partition, instead of four, and terminate with
end-of-file (^D). (And sfdisk will assume that your input line repre-
sents the first of four, that the second one is extended, and the 3rd
and 4th are empty.)
CAUTION WARNINGS
The options marked with caution in the manual page are dangerous. For
example not all functionality is completely implemented, which can be a
reason for unexpected results.
DOS 6.x WARNING
The DOS 6.x FORMAT command looks for some information in the first sec-
tor of the data area of the partition, and treats this information as
more reliable than the information in the partition table. DOS FORMAT
expects DOS FDISK to clear the first 512 bytes of the data area of a
partition whenever a size change occurs. DOS FORMAT will look at this
extra information even if the /U flag is given -- we consider this a
bug in DOS FORMAT and DOS FDISK.
The bottom line is that if you use sfdisk to change the size of a DOS
partition table entry, then you must also use dd to zero the first 512
bytes of that partition before using DOS FORMAT to format the parti-
tion. For example, if you were using sfdisk to make a DOS partition
table entry for /dev/hda1, then (after exiting sfdisk and rebooting
Linux so that the partition table information is valid) you would use
the command "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1" to zero the
first 512 bytes of the partition. BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL if you use the
dd command, since a small typo can make all of the data on your block
device useless.
For best results, you should always use an OS-specific partition table
program. For example, you should make DOS partitions with the DOS
FDISK program and Linux partitions with the Linux sfdisk program.
DRDOS WARNINGS
Stephen Tweedie reported (930515): `Most reports of superblock corrup-
tion turn out to be due to bad partitioning, with one filesystem over-
running the start of the next and corrupting its superblock. I have
even had this problem with the supposedly-reliable DRDOS. This was
quite possibly due to DRDOS-6.0's FDISK command. Unless I created a
blank track or cylinder between the DRDOS partition and the immediately
following one, DRDOS would happily stamp all over the start of the next
partition. Mind you, as long as I keep a little free device space
after any DRDOS partition, I don't have any other problems with the two
coexisting on the one drive.'
A. V. Le Blanc writes in README.efdisk: `Dr. DOS 5.0 and 6.0 has been
reported to have problems cooperating with Linux, and with this version
of efdisk in particular. This efdisk sets the system type to hexadeci-
mal 81. Dr. DOS seems to confuse this with hexadecimal 1, a DOS code.
If you use Dr. DOS, use the efdisk command 't' to change the system
code of any Linux partitions to some number less than hexadecimal 80; I
suggest 41 and 42 for the moment.'
A. V. Le Blanc writes in his README.fdisk: `DR-DOS 5.0 and 6.0 are
reported to have difficulties with partition ID codes of 80 or more.
The Linux `fdisk' used to set the system type of new partitions to
hexadecimal 81. DR-DOS seems to confuse this with hexadecimal 1, a DOS
code. The values 82 for swap and 83 for file systems should not cause
problems with DR-DOS. If they do, you may use the `fdisk' command `t'
to change the system code of any Linux partitions to some number less
than hexadecimal 80; I suggest 42 and 43 for the moment.'
In fact, it seems that only 4 bits are significant for the DRDOS FDISK,
so that for example 11 and 21 are listed as DOS 2.0. However, DRDOS
itself seems to use the full byte. I have not been able to reproduce
any corruption with DRDOS or its fdisk.
BUGS
There are too many options.
There is no support for non-DOS partition types.
SEE ALSO
cfdisk(8), fdisk(8), mkfs(8), parted(8), partprobe(8), kpartx(8)
AVAILABILITY
The sfdisk command is part of the util-linux package and is available
from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
util-linux August 2011 SFDISK(8)
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