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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | AUTHOR | ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | AVAILABILITY | COLOPHON |
WIPEFS(8) System Administration WIPEFS(8)
wipefs - wipe a signature from a device
wipefs [options] device...
wipefs [--backup] -o offset device...
wipefs [--backup] -a device...
wipefs can erase filesystem, raid or partition-table signatures
(magic strings) from the specified device to make the signatures
invisible for libblkid. wipefs does not erase the filesystem itself
nor any other data from the device.
When used without any options, wipefs lists all visible filesystems
and the offsets of their basic signatures. The default output is
subject to change. So whenever possible, you should avoid using
default outputs in your scripts. Always explicitly define expected
columns by using --output columns-list in environments where a stable
output is required.
wipefs calls the BLKRRPART ioctl when it has erased a partition-table
signature to inform the kernel about the change.
Note that some filesystems and some partition tables store more magic
strings on the device (e.g. FAT, ZFS, GPT). The wipefs command
(since v2.31) lists all the offset where a magic strings have been
detected.
When option -a is used, all magic strings that are visible for
libblkid are erased. In this case the wipefs scans the device again
after each modification (erase) until no magic string is found.
Note that by default wipefs does not erase nested partition tables on
non-whole disk devices. For this the option --force is required.
-a, --all
Erase all available signatures. The set of erased signatures
can be restricted with the -t option.
-b, --backup
Create a signature backup to the file
$HOME/wipefs-<devname>-<offset>.bak. For more details see the
EXAMPLES section.
-f, --force
Force erasure, even if the filesystem is mounted. This is
required in order to erase a partition-table signature on a
block device.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-J, --json
Use JSON output format.
-n, --noheadings
Do not print a header line.
-O, --output list
Specify which output columns to print. Use --help to get a
list of all supported columns.
-n, --no-act
Causes everything to be done except for the write() call.
-o, --offset offset
Specify the location (in bytes) of the signature which should
be erased from the device. The offset number may include a
"0x" prefix; then the number will be interpreted as a hex
value. It is possible to specify multiple -o options.
The offset argument may be followed by the multiplicative
suffixes KiB (=1024), MiB (=1024*1024), and so on for GiB,
TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g. "K" has
the same meaning as "KiB"), or the suffixes KB (=1000), MB
(=1000*1000), and so on for GB, TB, PB, EB, ZB and YB.
-p, --parsable
Print out in parsable instead of printable format. Encode all
potentially unsafe characters of a string to the corresponding
hex value prefixed by '\x'.
-q, --quiet
Suppress any messages after a successful signature wipe.
-t, --types list
Limit the set of printed or erased signatures. More than one
type may be specified in a comma-separated list. The list or
individual types can be prefixed with 'no' to specify the
types on which no action should be taken. For more details
see mount(8).
-V, --version
Display version information and exit.
wipefs /dev/sda*
Prints infomation about sda and all partitions on sda.
wipefs --all --backup /dev/sdb
Erases all signatures from the device /dev/sdb and creates a
signature backup file ~/wipefs-sdb-<offset>.bak for each
signature.
dd if=~/wipefs-sdb-0x00000438.bak of=/dev/sdb seek=$((0x00000438))
bs=1 conv=notrunc
Restores an ext2 signature from the backup file ~/wipefs-
sdb-0x00000438.bak.
Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>
LIBBLKID_DEBUG=all
enables libblkid debug output.
blkid(8), findfs(8)
The wipefs command is part of the util-linux package and is available
from 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
util-linux@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
2017-07-05. If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML ver‐
sion 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 man‐
ual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
util-linux December 2014 WIPEFS(8)
Pages that refer to this page: blkid(8), btrfs-device(8), cfdisk(8), fdisk(8), mkfs.btrfs(8), sfdisk(8)