Reference

makefs(8)

create a file system image from a directory tree or a mtree manifest

NAME

makefs – create a file system image from a directory tree or a mtree manifest

SYNOPSIS

makefs [-DxZ] [-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] [-R roundup-size] [-S sector-size] [-s image-size] [-T timestamp] [-t fs-type] image-file directory | manifest [extra-directory ...]

DESCRIPTION

The utility makefs creates a file system image into image-file from the directory tree directory or from the mtree manifest manifest. 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 or manifest first before creating image-file. No special devices or privileges are required to perform this task.

The options are as follows:

-B 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.

-b 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.

-D

Treat duplicate paths in an mtree manifest as warnings not error. If this flag is specified more than once, warnings about duplicate paths are not printed at all.

-d debug-mask

Enable various levels of debugging, depending upon which bits are set in debug-mask. This option is intended for source debugging. debug-mask is a bit map defined in the header file makefs.h. See the source for usage, and look for defines starting with DEBUG_.

-F mtree-specfile

This is almost certainly not the option you are looking for. To create an image from a list of files in an mtree format manifest, specify it as the last argument on the command line, not as the argument to -F.

Use mtree-specfile as an mtree(8) ‘specfile’ specification. This option has no effect when the image is created from a mtree manifest rather than a directory.

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, and link (in the case of symbolic links). If time is not provided, the current time will be used. If flags is not provided, the current file flags will be used. Missing regular file entries will be created as zero-length files.

-f 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.

-M minimum-size

Set the minimum size of the file system image to minimum-size.

-m 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.

-N 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.

-O offset

Instead of creating the filesystem at the beginning of the file, start at offset. Valid only for ffs and msdos.

-o fs-options

Set file system specific options. fs-options is a comma separated list of options. Valid file system specific options are detailed below.

-p

Deprecated. Create a sparse file for ffs. This is the same as the preferred -Z flag.

-R roundup-size

Round the image up to roundup-size. roundup-size should be a multiple of the file system block size. This option only applies to the ffs file system type.

-S sector-size

Set the file system sector size to sector-size. Defaults to 512.

-s image-size

Set the size of the file system image to image-size. This is equivalent to setting both the minimum ( -M) and the maximum ( -m) sizes to the same value. For ffs and msdos the image-size does not include the offset. offset is not included in that size.

-T timestamp

Specify a timestamp to be set for all filesystem files and directories created so that repeatable builds are possible. The timestamp can be a pathname, where the timestamps are derived from that file, or an integer value interpreted as the number of seconds from the Epoch. Timestamps in a mtree(5) specfile (specified with -F) are used even if a default timestamp is specified. However, the timestamps in an mtree manifest are ignored if a default timestamp is specified.

-t fs-type

Create an fs-type file system image. The following file system types are supported:

ffs

BSD fast file system (default).

cd9660

ISO 9660 file system.

msdos

FAT12, FAT16, or FAT32 file system.

zfs

ZFS pool containing one or more file systems.

-x

Exclude file system nodes not explicitly listed in the specfile.

-Z

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-specific options

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. If unset, will allocate the minimum number of inodes to represent the filesystem if no free space has been requested (free blocks or minimum size set); otherwise the larger of the newfs defaults or what is required by the free inode parameters if set.

fsize

Fragment size.

label

Label name of the image.

maxbpg

Maximum blocks per file in a cylinder group.

minfree

Minimum % free.

optimization

Optimization preference; one of ‘space’ or ‘time’.

extent

Maximum extent size.

maxbpcg

Maximum total number of blocks in a cylinder group.

version

UFS version. 1 for FFS (default), 2 for UFS2.

softupdates

0 for disable (default), 1 for enable

CD9660-specific options

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-illegal-chars

Allow illegal characters in filenames. This option is not implemented.

allow-lowercase

Allow lowercase characters in filenames. This option is not implemented.

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.

bootimagedir

Boot image directory. This option is not implemented.

chrp-boot

Write an MBR partition table to the image to allow older CHRP hardware to boot.

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 ‘efi’, ‘i386’, ‘macppc’, or ‘powerpc’.

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.

isolevel

An integer representing the ISO 9660 interchange level where “level” is either ‘1’ or ‘2’. “level” ‘3’ is not implemented.

keep-bad-images

Do not discard 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).

omit-trailing-period

Omit trailing periods in filenames.

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.).

verbose

Turns on verbose output.

volumeid

Volume set identifier of the image.

msdos-specific options

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):

backup_sector

Location of the backup boot sector.

block_size

Block size.

bootstrap

Bootstrap file.

bytes_per_sector

Bytes per sector.

create_size

Create file size.

directory_entries

Directory entries.

drive_heads

Drive heads.

fat_type

FAT type (12, 16, or 32).

floppy

Preset drive parameters for standard format floppy disks (160, 180, 320, 360, 640, 720, 1200, 1232, 1440, or 2880).

hidden_sectors

Hidden sectors.

info_sector

Location of the info sector.

media_descriptor

Media descriptor.

num_FAT

Number of FATs.

OEM_string

OEM string.

offset

Offset in device. This option will be ignored if -O is set to a positive number.

reserved_sectors

Reserved sectors.

sectors_per_cluster

Sectors per cluster.

sectors_per_fat

Sectors per FAT.

sectors_per_track

Sectors per track.

size

File System size.

volume_id

Volume ID.

volume_label

Volume Label.

zfs-specific options

The image created by makefs contains a ZFS pool with a single vdev of type ‘disk’. The root dataset is always created implicitly and contains the entire input directory tree unless additional datasets are specified using the options described below.

To keep images reproducible, the pool GUID and other random identifiers will always be the same across runs of makefs. This means that when a pool is first imported, its GUID should be reset using zpool-reguid(8) to avoid conflicting with other pools also generated by makefs; otherwise, it will not be possible to import other pools. This can be configured from /etc/rc.conf using the zpool_reguid variable.

The arguments consist of a keyword, an equal sign (‘=’), and a value. The following keywords are supported:

ashift

The base-2 logarithm of the minimum block size. Typical values are 9 (512B blocks) and 12 (4KB blocks). The default value is 12.

autotrim

The value of the ‘autotrim’ pool property, either ‘on’ or ‘off’. The default is ‘off’.

bootfs

The name of the bootable dataset for the pool. Specifying this option causes the ‘bootfs’ property to be set in the created pool.

mssize

The size of metaslabs in the created pool. By default, makefs allocates large (up to 512MB) metaslabs with the expectation that the image will be auto-expanded upon first use. This option allows the default heuristic to be overridden.

path

The path to the device for this vdev. The default is /dev/null.

verify-txgs

Prompt OpenZFS to verify pool metadata during import. This is disabled by default as it may significantly increase import times.

poolguid

Use the specified 64-bit integer as the pool GUID. If this option is not specified, the pool GUID will be random but fixed across multiple identical invocations of makefs. This option is useful for testing but not required for reproducibility.

poolname

The name of the ZFS pool. This option must be specified.

rootpath

An implicit path prefix added to dataset mountpoints. By default it is /<poolname>. For creating bootable pools, the rootpath should be set to /. At least one dataset must have a mountpoint equal to rootpath.

fs

Create an additional dataset. This option may be specified multiple times. The argument value must be of the form <dataset>[;<prop1=v1>[;<prop2=v2>[;...]]], where dataset is the name of the dataset and must belong to the pool's namespace. For example, with a pool name of ‘test’ all dataset names must be prefixed by ‘test/’. A dataset must exist at each level of the pool's namespace. For example, to create ‘test/foo/bar’, ‘test/foo’ must be created as well.

The dataset mountpoints determine how the datasets are populated with files from the staged directory tree. Conceptually, all datasets are mounted before any are populated with files. The root of the staged directory tree is mapped to rootpath.

Dataset properties, as described in zfsprops(7), may be specified following the dataset name. The following properties may be set for a dataset:

atime
canmount
compression
exec
mountpoint
setuid

Note that makefs does not implement compression of files included in the image, regardless of the value of the compression property.

SEE ALSO

mtree(5), rc.conf(5), zfsconcepts(7), zfsprops(7), zpoolprops(7), mtree(8), newfs(8), zpool-reguid(8)

HISTORY

The makefs utility appeared in NetBSD 1.6. It was ported to FreeBSD and first appeared in FreeBSD 8.0.

AUTHORS

Luke Mewburn ⟨[email protected]⟩ (original program), Daniel Watt, Walter Deignan, Ryan Gabrys, Alan Perez-Rathke, Ram Vedam (cd9660 support), Christos Zoulas (msdos support), Mark Johnston (zfs support).

History

-D since FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE; -O since FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE; -R since FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE; -T since FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE; -Z since FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE; -p since FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE.