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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 connec-
tion 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 partitions 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 values, ask for a listing with sectors
as unit (-u S).
Check partitions
The third type of invocation: sfdisk -V device will apply various consistency 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 parti-
tion 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 conversational;
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 parti-
tions, the sectors describing them are located somewhere on block device, possibly on sec-
tors 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 parti-
tion 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 Sectors, 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 kernel 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 can-
not 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 cer-
tain 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 parti-
tions 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 suc-
cessful, 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 par-
titions 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 parti-
tion 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 par-
tition. 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 problems 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 contains 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 various 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 followed by whitespace;
initial and trailing whitespace is ignored. Numbers 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 computes 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 cylinders, 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 partitions inside a extended partition, instead of four, and
terminate with end-of-file (^D). (And sfdisk will assume that your input line represents
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 sector 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 partition. 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 exam-
ple, 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 corruption turn out to be
due to bad partitioning, with one filesystem overrunning the start of the next and cor-
rupting 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 hexadecimal 81. Dr. DOS seems to confuse this with hexa-
decimal 1, a DOS code. If you use Dr. DOS, use the efdisk command 't' to change the sys-
tem 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 diffi-
culties 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 exam-
ple 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.ker-
nel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
util-linux August 2011 SFDISK(8)
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