wipefs man page on Mageia

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WIPEFS(8)		     System Administration		     WIPEFS(8)

NAME
       wipefs - wipe a signature from a device

SYNOPSIS
       wipefs [-ahnpqtV] [-o offset] device...

DESCRIPTION
       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 options -a  or  -o,  it  lists  all  visible
       filesystems and the offsets of their basic signatures.

       Note  that  some	 filesystems or some partition tables store more magic
       strings on the devices.	The wipefs command lists only the first offset
       where  a magic string has been detected.	 The device is not scanned for
       additional magic strings for the same filesystem.  It is possible  that
       after  wipefs  -o  offset  the  same filesystem or partition table will
       still be visible by another magic string on another offset.

       When used with option -a, all magic strings that are visible  for  lib‐
       blkid are erased.

OPTIONS
       -a, --all
	      Erase  all  available  signatures.  The set of erased signatures
	      can be restricted with the -t list option.

       -b, --backup
	      Create  a	 signature  backup  to	the  file   $HOME/wipefs-<dev‐
	      name>-<offset>.bak.  For more details see EXAMPLES section.

       -f, --force
	      Force  erasure,  even  if	 the  filesystem  is mounted.  This is
	      required in order to  erase  the	partition  table  on  a	 block
	      device.

       -h, --help
	      Display help text and exit.

       -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  suf‐
	      fixes  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 output messages after 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.

EXAMPLES
       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 signa‐
	      ture.

       dd if=~/wipefs-sdb-0x00000438.bak of=/dev/sdb seek=$((0x00000438)) bs=1
       conv=notrunc
	      Restores	 ext2	signature  from	 the  backup  file   ~/wipefs-
	      sdb-0x00000438.bak.

AUTHOR
       Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>

ENVIRONMENT
       Setting LIBBLKID_DEBUG=0xffff enables debug output.

SEE ALSO
       blkid(8), findfs(8)

AVAILABILITY
       The wipefs command is part of the util-linux package and	 is  available
       from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

util-linux			 October 2009			     WIPEFS(8)
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