CFDISK(8) System Administration CFDISK(8)
NAME
cfdisk - display or manipulate a disk partition table
SYNOPSIS
cfdisk [options] [device]
DESCRIPTION
cfdisk is a curses-based program for partitioning any block device.
The default device is /dev/sda.
Note that cfdisk provides basic partitioning functionality with a user-
friendly interface. If you need advanced features, use fdisk(8) in-
stead.
Since version 2.25 cfdisk supports MBR (DOS), GPT, SUN and SGI disk la-
bels, but no longer provides any functionality for CHS (Cylinder-Head-
Sector) addressing. CHS has never been important for Linux, and this
addressing concept does not make any sense for new devices.
Since version 2.25 cfdisk also does not provide a 'print' command any
more. This functionality is provided by the utilities partx(8) and ls-
blk(8) in a very comfortable and rich way.
If you want to remove an old partition table from a device, use
wipefs(8).
OPTIONS
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-L, --color[=when]
Colorize the output. The optional argument when can be auto,
never or always. If the when argument is omitted, it defaults
to auto. The colors can be disabled, for the current built-in
default see --help output. See also the COLORS section.
-V, --version
Display version information and exit.
-z, --zero
Start with an in-memory zeroed partition table. This option
does not zero the partition table on the disk; rather, it simply
starts the program without reading the existing partition table.
This option allows you to create a new partition table from
scratch or from an sfdisk-compatible script.
COMMANDS
The commands for cfdisk can be entered by pressing the corresponding
key (pressing Enter after the command is not necessary). Here is a
list of the available commands:
b Toggle the bootable flag of the current partition. This allows
you to select which primary partition is bootable on the drive.
This command may not be available for all partition label types.
d Delete the current partition. This will convert the current
partition into free space and merge it with any free space imme-
diately surrounding the current partition. A partition already
marked as free space or marked as unusable cannot be deleted.
h Show the help screen.
n Create a new partition from free space. cfdisk then prompts you
for the size of the partition you want to create. The default
size is equal to the entire available free space at the current
position.
The size may be followed by a multiplicative suffix: KiB
(=1024), MiB (=1024*1024), and so on for GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB
and YiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g., "K" has the same meaning as
"KiB").
q Quit the program. This will exit the program without writing
any data to the disk.
s Sort the partitions in ascending start-sector order. When
deleting and adding partitions, it is likely that the numbering
of the partitions will no longer match their order on the disk.
This command restores that match.
t Change the partition type. By default, new partitions are cre-
ated as Linux partitions.
u Dump the current in-memory partition table to an sfdisk-compati-
ble script file.
The script files are compatible between cfdisk, fdisk, sfdisk
and other libfdisk applications. For more details see
sfdisk(8).
It is also possible to load an sfdisk-script into cfdisk if
there is no partition table on the device or when you start
cfdisk with the --zero command-line option.
W Write the partition table to disk (you must enter an uppercase
W). Since this might destroy data on the disk, you must either
confirm or deny the write by entering `yes' or `no'. If you en-
ter `yes', cfdisk will write the partition table to disk and
then tell the kernel to re-read the partition table from the
disk.
The re-reading of the partition table does not always work. In
such a case you need to inform the kernel about any new parti-
tions by using partprobe(8) or partx(8), or by rebooting the
system.
x Toggle extra information about a partition.
Up Arrow, Down Arrow
Move the cursor to the previous or next partition. If there are
more partitions than can be displayed on a screen, you can dis-
play the next (previous) set of partitions by moving down (up)
at the last (first) partition displayed on the screen.
Left Arrow, Right Arrow
Select the preceding or the next menu item. Hitting Enter will
execute the currently selected item.
All commands can be entered with either uppercase or lowercase letters
(except for Write). When in a submenu or at a prompt, you can hit the
Esc key to return to the main menu.
COLORS
Implicit coloring can be disabled by creating the empty file /etc/ter-
minal-colors.d/cfdisk.disable.
See terminal-colors.d(5) for more details about colorization configura-
tion.
cfdisk does not support color customization with a color-scheme file.
ENVIRONMENT
CFDISK_DEBUG=all
enables cfdisk debug output.
LIBFDISK_DEBUG=all
enables libfdisk debug output.
LIBBLKID_DEBUG=all
enables libblkid debug output.
LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG=all
enables libsmartcols debug output.
LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG_PADDING=on
use visible padding characters. Requires enabled LIBSMART-
COLS_DEBUG.
SEE ALSO
fdisk(8), parted(8), partprobe(8), partx(8), sfdisk(8)
AUTHOR
Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>
The current cfdisk implementation is based on the original cfdisk from
Kevin E. Martin (martin@cs.unc.edu).
AVAILABILITY
The cfdisk command is part of the util-linux package and is available
from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
util-linux March 2014 CFDISK(8)