Fedora® Linux® TOOLBOX: 1000+ Commands for Fedora, CentOS, and Red Hat® Power Users

Chapter 7. Administering File Systems

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding Linux file system types

• Partitioning disks with fdisk and parted

• Work with labels with e2label and findfs

• Create file systems with mkfs

• View file system info with tune2fs/dumpe2fs

• Use swap areas with mkswap, swapon, and swapoff

• Use fstab, mount, and umount to mount and unmount file systems

• Check file systems with badblocks and fsck

• View RAID information with mdadm

• Check disk space with du and df

• Logical Volume Manager (LVM)

File systems provide the structures in which files, directories, devices, and other elements of the system are accessed from Linux. Linux supports many different types of file systems (ext3, VFAT, ISO9660, NTFS, and so on) as well as many different types of media on which file systems can exist (hard disks, CDs, USB flash drives, ZIP drives, and so on).

Creating and managing disk partitions and the file systems on those partitions are among the most critical jobs in administering a Linux system. That's because if you mess up your file system, you might very well lose the critical data stored on your computer's hard disk or removable media.

This chapter contains commands for partitioning storage media, creating file systems, mounting and unmounting partitions, and checking file systems for errors and disk space.

Understanding File System Basics

Even though there are a lot of different file system types available in Linux, there are not many that you need to set up a basic Linux system. For a basic Linux system, ...