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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | COMMANDS | COLORS | ENVIRONMENT | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | REPORTING BUGS | AVAILABILITY |
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CFDISK(8) System Administration CFDISK(8)
cfdisk - display or manipulate a disk partition table
cfdisk [options] [device]
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) instead.
All disk label changes will remain in memory only, and the disk
will be unmodified until you decide to write your changes. Be
careful before using the write command.
Since version 2.25 cfdisk supports MBR (DOS), GPT, SUN and SGI
disk labels, 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 lsblk(8) in a very comfortable and rich way.
If you want to remove an old partition table from a device, use
wipefs(8).
-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.
--lock[=mode]
Use an exclusive BSD lock for the device or file that is
operated upon. The optional argument mode can be yes (1), no
(0), or nonblock. If the mode argument is omitted, it defaults
to yes. This option overrides the environment variable
$LOCK_BLOCK_DEVICE. The default is to not use any lock at all,
but using a lock is recommended to avoid collisions with
systemd-udevd(8) or other tools.
-r, --read-only
Forced open in read-only mode.
-b, --sector-size sectorsize
Specify the sector size of the disk. Valid values are 512,
1024, 2048, and 4096. The kernel is aware of the sector size
for regular block devices. Use this option only on very old
kernels, when working with disk images, or to override the
kernel’s default sector size. Since util-linux-2.17, fdisk
distinguishes between logical and physical sector size. This
option changes both sector sizes to the specified sectorsize.
-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(8)-compatible
script.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Display version and exit.
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
immediately 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.
r
Reduce or enlarge the current partition. cfdisk then prompts
you for the new size of the partition. The default size is the
current size. A partition marked as free space or marked as
unusable cannot be resized.
Note that reducing the size of a partition might destroy data
on that partition.
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
created as Linux partitions.
u
Dump the current in-memory partition table to an
sfdisk(8)-compatible script file.
The script files are compatible between cfdisk, fdisk(8)
sfdisk(8) 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
enter `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
partitions 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
display 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.
The output colorization is implemented by terminal-colors.d(5)
functionality. Implicit coloring can be disabled by an empty file
/etc/terminal-colors.d/cfdisk.disable
for the cfdisk command or for all tools by
/etc/terminal-colors.d/disable
Since version 2.41, the $NO_COLOR environment variable is also
supported to disable output colorization unless explicitly enabled
by a command-line option.
The user-specific $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d or
$HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d overrides the global setting.
Note that the output colorization may be enabled by default, and
in this case terminal-colors.d directories do not have to exist
yet.
cfdisk does not support color customization with a color-scheme
file.
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
LIBSMARTCOLS_DEBUG.
LOCK_BLOCK_DEVICE=<mode>
use exclusive BSD lock. The mode is "1" or "0". See --lock for
more details.
Karel Zak <[email protected]>
The current cfdisk implementation is based on the original cfdisk
from Kevin E. Martin <[email protected]>.
fdisk(8), parted(8), partprobe(8), partx(8), sfdisk(8)
For bug reports, use the issue tracker
<https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.
The cfdisk command is part of the util-linux package which can be
downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. This page is
part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux utilities)
project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, send it to
[email protected]. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that
was found in the repository was 2025-08-05.) If you discover any
rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
mail to [email protected]
util-linux 2.42-start-521-ec46 2025-08-09 CFDISK(8)
Pages that refer to this page: fdisk(8), sfdisk(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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