mkfs

Use the mkfs command to create a GPFS™ file system to manage files on a storage device.

You can access the file system content by using file services like Common Internet File System (CIFS) or Network File System (NFS). You must have Administrator authority to use this command.

Syntax

Parameters and arguments

-user user_name

Specifies an IBM Spectrum Control™ user ID.

-pwd password

Specifies the password for the IBM Spectrum Control user ID.

-url url

Specifies the Device server. The format of the URL is system:port_number, where system represents either the host name or IP address, and port_number represents the IBM Spectrum Control Device server port.

-name name

Specifies the name of the file system. The name must be unique and can be a maximum of 256 characters.

-cluster cluster_id

Specifies the name of the IBM Spectrum® Control cluster key. The cluster key is listed in the ID column of the lscluster command output.

Tip: This value is different from the Cluster ID output from the lscluster command.

-mountpoint mount_point

Specifies the mount point directory of the GPFS file system.

-noverify

Specifies that the disk descriptor is not verified so that disks that contain an old descriptor can be reused. Specify the -noverify parameter only when you want to reuse disks that are no longer needed for an existing file system. If the command is interrupted for any reason, you must use the -noverify parameter when you run the command again.

-numInodes max_num_inodes[:num_inodes_preallocate]

Specifies the maximum number of files for this file system. The num_inodes_preallocate variable specifies the number of inodes that the system immediately preallocates. You can specify values in thousands (k) or in millions (M). To specify values of 100 million for the max_num_inodes variable and 1million for the num_inodes_preallocate variable, enter -numInodes 100M:1M.

-numNodes num_nodes

Specifies the estimated number of nodes that is mounted with the file system.

-disks disk_name

Specifies the disks to create the file system on. The disk_name variable contains a comma-separated list of disk names.

Tip: You can verify the availability of a disk by running the lsnsd command.

-pool pool_name

Specifies the file system pool to create the file system on.

Tip: You can list all the disks in a pool by running the lsnsd command.

-discoverdisks

Specifies that IBM Spectrum Control detects and uses free GPFS Network Shared Disks (NSDs) automatically, which are tagged for a specified file system but not yet included. This option is applicable only for Storwize® V7000 Unified.

Tip: You can verify the availability of a disk by running the lsnsd command.

-createdisks size | mdisk_grp1 | mdisk_grp2 | N=num_disks

Creates disks implicitly, before the file system is created, and then adds them to the file system. This option is applicable only for Storwize V7000 Unified.

size: Specifies the size of the new disks. Size is specified as an integer with capacity up to petabyte without a space between the size and the unit; for example 17G. Disk sizes must be specified either without suffix (byte) or with K (kilobyte), M (megabyte), G (gigabyte), T (terabyte), or P (petabyte). Values less than 512 MB are not supported. This parameter is mandatory.
mdisk_grp1: Specifies the storage system managed disk (MDisk) group in which the underlying NAS volumes are created. This parameter is mandatory.
Tip: You can see a list of available MDisk groups by using the svcinfo lsmdiskgrp command.
mdisk_grp2: Specifies the second storage system MDisk group in which the underlying NAS volumes are created. This parameter is optional.
Tip: You can see a list of available MDisk groups by using the svcinfo lsmdiskgrp command.
num_disks: Specifies the number of storage system NAS volumes that is created in each MDisk group. This parameter is optional. The default number of disks is 3.

-fs character

Specifies the 7-bit character that separates the information in the output. If you omit this parameter, the information is separated by blank spaces.

-header

Suppresses the column headings in the output. If you omit this parameter, the column headings are included.

-help | -h | -?

Lists help information for the command.

-qs character

Specifies the 7-bit character that surrounds character strings and date stamps in the output. If you omit this parameter, character strings and date stamps are enclosed by double quotation marks (").

-silent

Suppresses all output for the command. If you omit this parameter, output is included.

Example: Create a file system by using the createdisks parameter

The following command first creates one disk of 20 GB and then creates a file system.

tpctool> mkfs -name eefs05 -cluster kq98n5d.ibm+00000200A20045DC+0 
-createdisks 20G,0,N=1 -user admin -pwd password -url localhost:9550

The following output is returned:

FilesystemId                          Status
=============================================
eefs05+kq98n5d.ibm+00000200A20045DC+0 SUCCESS

Example: Create a file system by using the pool parameter

The following command creates a file system on a specified pool.

tpctool> mkfs -name eefs06 -cluster kq98n5d.ibm+00000200A20045DC+0 
-pool s1pool -user admin -pwd password -url localhost:9550

The following output is returned:

FilesystemId                          Status
=============================================
eefs06+kq98n5d.ibm+00000200A20045DC+0 SUCCESS

Example: Create a file system by using the discoverdisks parameter

The following command discovers all the disks that are tagged to the eefs07file system, creates the eefs07file system, and finally adds the disks to it.

tpctool> mkfs -name eefs07 -cluster kq98n5d.ibm+00000200A20045DC+0 
-discoverdisks -user admin -pwd password -url localhost:9550

The following output is returned:

FilesystemId                          Status
=============================================
eefs07+kq98n5d.ibm+00000200A20045DC+0 SUCCESS

Example: Create a file system by using the disks parameter

The following command creates a file system on the specified disks.

tpctool> mkfs -name eefs01 -cluster storage3.storage.tucson.ibm.com+9.11.92.174+0 
-disks array0_sas_60001ff078c3a0789ff0001,array1_sas_60001ff078c3a0689fe0000 
-user admin -pwd password -url localhost:9550

The following output is returned:

FilesystemId                          										 Status
===========================================================
eefs01+storage3.storage.tucson.ibm.com+9.11.92.174+0	 SUCCESS