#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# virt-make-fs
-# Copyright (C) 2010 Red Hat Inc.
+# Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Red Hat Inc.
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
Basic usage is:
- virt-make-fs input output
+ virt-make-fs input output.img
where C<input> is either a directory containing files that you want to
add, or a tar archive (either uncompressed tar or gzip-compressed
-tar); and C<output> is a disk image. The input type is detected
-automatically. The output disk image defaults to a raw ext2 image
-unless you specify extra flags (see L</OPTIONS> below).
-
-=head2 EXTRA SPACE
-
-Unlike formats such as tar and squashfs, a filesystem does not "just
-fit" the files that it contains, but might have extra space.
-Depending on how you are going to use the output, you might think this
-extra space is wasted and want to minimize it, or you might want to
-leave space so that more files can be added later. Virt-make-fs
-defaults to minimizing the extra space, but you can use the I<--size>
-flag to leave space in the filesystem if you want it.
-
-An alternative way to leave extra space but not make the output image
-any bigger is to use an alternative disk image format (instead of the
-default "raw" format). Using I<--format=qcow2> will use the native
-QEmu/KVM qcow2 image format (check your hypervisor supports this
-before using it). This allows you to choose a large I<--size> but the
-extra space won't actually be allocated in the image until you try to
-store something in it.
-
-Don't forget that you can also use local commands including
-L<resize2fs(8)> and L<virt-resize(1)> to resize existing filesystems,
-or rerun virt-make-fs to build another image from scratch.
-
-=head3 EXAMPLE
-
- virt-make-fs --format=qcow2 --size=+200M input output.img
+tar); and C<output.img> is a disk image. The input type is detected
+automatically. The output disk image defaults to a raw ext2 sparse
+image unless you specify extra flags (see L</OPTIONS> below).
=head2 FILESYSTEM TYPE
virt-make-fs --partition=gpt --size=+4T --format=qcow2 input disk.img
+=head2 EXTRA SPACE
+
+Unlike formats such as tar and squashfs, a filesystem does not "just
+fit" the files that it contains, but might have extra space.
+Depending on how you are going to use the output, you might think this
+extra space is wasted and want to minimize it, or you might want to
+leave space so that more files can be added later. Virt-make-fs
+defaults to minimizing the extra space, but you can use the I<--size>
+flag to leave space in the filesystem if you want it.
+
+An alternative way to leave extra space but not make the output image
+any bigger is to use an alternative disk image format (instead of the
+default "raw" format). Using I<--format=qcow2> will use the native
+QEmu/KVM qcow2 image format (check your hypervisor supports this
+before using it). This allows you to choose a large I<--size> but the
+extra space won't actually be allocated in the image until you try to
+store something in it.
+
+Don't forget that you can also use local commands including
+L<resize2fs(8)> and L<virt-resize(1)> to resize existing filesystems,
+or rerun virt-make-fs to build another image from scratch.
+
+=head3 EXAMPLE
+
+ virt-make-fs --format=qcow2 --size=+200M input output.img
+
=head1 OPTIONS
=over 4
Choose the output disk image format.
-The default is C<raw> (raw disk image).
+The default is C<raw> (raw sparse disk image).
For other choices, see the L<qemu-img(1)> manpage. The only other
choice that would really make sense here is C<qcow2>.
parser might consider the next parameter to be the partition type.
For example:
- virt-make-fs --partition input.tar ...
+ virt-make-fs --partition input.tar output.img
would cause virt-make-fs to think you wanted to use a partition type
of C<input.tar> which is completely wrong. To avoid this, use I<-->
-(a double dash) between options and the input file argument:
+(a double dash) between options and the input and output arguments:
+
+ virt-make-fs --partition -- input.tar output.img
- virt-make-fs --partition -- input.tar ...
+For MBR, virt-make-fs sets the partition type byte automatically.
=back
=head1 COPYRIGHT
-Copyright (C) 2010 Red Hat Inc.
+Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Red Hat Inc.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by