DASDFMT(8)

NAME
dasdfmt - formatting of DASD (ECKD) disk drives.

SYNOPSIS
dasdfmt [-h] [-?] [-t] [-v] [-y] [-p] [-m step]
        [-b blksize] [-l volser] [-d layout]
        [-L] [-V] [-F] {-n devno | -f node}

DESCRIPTION
dasdfmt formats a DASD (ECKD) disk drive to prepare it for usage with Linux for S/390.
WARNING: Careless usage of dasdfmt can result in LOSS OF DATA.

OPTIONS

-h or --help
    Print usage and exit.

-? or --help
    Print usage and exit.

-t or --test
    Disables any modification of the disk drive.
    dasdfmt just prints out, what it would do.

-v  Increases verbosity.

-y  Start formatting without further user-confirmation.

-L or --no_label
    Omit the writing of a disk label after formatting.
    This makes only sense for the 'ldl' disk layout.
    The '-L' option has to be specified after the '-d ldl' option.
    e.g. dasdfmt -d ldl -L -f /dev/...

-V or --version
    Print version number and exit.

-F or --force
    Formats the device without checking, if the device is in use.

-d layout or --disk_layout=layout
    Formats the device with compatible disk layout or linux disk layout. layout is either cdl for the compatible disk layout (default) or ldl for the linux disk layout.
    Compatible disk layout means a special handling of the first two tracks of the volume. This enables other S/390 or zSeries operating systems to access this device (e.g. for backup purposes).

-p or --progressbar
    Print a progress bar while formatting. Do not use this option if you are using a 3270 console, running in background or redirecting the output to a file.

-m step or --hashmarks=step
    Print a hashmark every step cylinders. The value step has to be within range [1,1000], otherwise it will be set to the default, which is 10.
    You can use this option to see the progress of formatting in case you are not able to use the progress bar option -p, e.g. with a 3270 terminal.

-b blksize or --blocksize=blksize
    Specify blocksize to be used. blksize must be a positive integer and always be a power of two. Due to some limitations in the driver, it is strongly recommended to use a blksize of 4096.

-l volser or --label=volser
    Specify the volume serial number or volume identifier to be written to disk after formatting. If no label is specified, a sensible default is used. volser is interpreted as ASCII string and is automatically converted to uppercase and then to EBCDIC.
    e.g. -l LNX001 or --label=DASD01
    The volser identifies by serial number the volume. A volume serial number is 1 through 6 alphanumeric or one of the following special characters: $, #, @, %. Enclose a serial number that contains special characters in apostrophes. If the number is shorter than six characters, it is padded with trailing blanks.
    Do not code a volume serial number as SCRTCH, PRIVAT, or Lnnnnn (L with five numbers); these are used in OS/390 messages to ask the operator to mount a volume. Do not code a volume serial number as MIGRAT, which is used by the OS/390 Hierarchical Storage Manager DFSMShsm for migrated data sets.
    NOTE: Try to avoid using special characters in the volume serial. This may cause problems accessing a disk by volser.
    In case you really have to use special characters, make sure you are using quotes. In addition there is a special handling for the '$' sign. Please specify it using '\$' if necessary.
    e.g. -l 'a@b\$c#' to get A@B$C#

-n devno or --devno=devno
    Specify the device using the device number devno. This device number is a 4 character hexadecimal number WITHOUT prefixes. Leading zeros could be omitted.
    NOTE: This option is only usable if your system has switched on the device file system.
    example:
        -n 900 or --devno=900

-f node or --device=node
    Specify the device using the device node. device is the complete path to the device.
    This could be either
            /dev/dasdx
        where x is one or more lowercase letter(s).
    or
            /dev/dasd/xxxx/device
        where xxxx is the four-letter device number.
    depending if you are using devfs.
    NOTE: This option has to be used in case you do not use the device file system.
    example:
        with devfs:
            -f /dev/dasd/0900/device or
            --device=/dev/dasd/0900/device
        without devfs:
            -f /dev/dasda or
            --device=/dev/dasda

BUGS
None so far ;-)

AUTHOR
This man-page was written by Volker Sameske <sameske@de.ibm.com> and
Fritz Elfert <felfert@to.com>