dkctl(8) - NetBSD Manual Pages

DKCTL(8)                NetBSD System Manager's Manual                DKCTL(8)


NAME

     dkctl -- program to manipulate disks


SYNOPSIS

     dkctl device
     dkctl device command [arg [...]]


DESCRIPTION

     dkctl allows a user or system administrator to manipulate and configure
     disks in various ways.  It is used by specifying a disk to manipulate,
     the command to perform, and any arguments the command may require.
     device is the disk (wdN, sdN, ...) containing the wedges unless noted
     otherwise.  If dkctl is called without any command, it displays strategy,
     cache, and all of the wedges of the specified device.


COMMANDS

     The following commands are supported:

     addwedge name startblk blkcnt ptype
                         Define a ``wedge'' on the specified disk starting at
                         block number startblk and spanning blkcnt blocks.
                         You need to create the partition first with fdisk(8)
                         or gpt(8), dkctl will just name it.  The wedge will
                         have the volume name name and the partition type
                         ptype.  Valid choices for ptype would be unused,
                         swap, ffs, lfs, ext2fs, cd9660, ados, hfs, msdos,
                         filecore, raidframe, ccd, appleufs, ntfs, cgd, and
                         zfs.

                         The device name of the virtual block device assigned
                         to the wedge will be displayed after the wedge has
                         been successfully created.  See dk(4) for more infor-
                         mation about disk wedges.

     badsector flush | list | retry
                         Used for managing the kernel's bad sector list for
                         wd(4) devices.  The software bad sector list is only
                         maintained if the option ``WD_SOFTBADSECT'' was spec-
                         ified on kernel configuration.

                               flush     Clears the in kernel list of bad sec-
                                         tors.

                               list      Prints out the list of bad sector
                                         ranges recorded by the kernel.

                               retry     Flushes the in kernel list and then
                                         retries all of the previously
                                         recorded bad sectors, causing the
                                         list to self update.  This option can
                                         only be used with character devices.

     delwedge dk         Delete the wedge specified by its device name dk from
                         the specified disk.

     getcache            Get and display the cache enables for the specified
                         device.

     getwedgeinfo        Display information about the specified disk wedge.
                         device in this case is the wedge name.

     keeplabel [yes | no]
                         Specify to keep or drop the in-core disklabel on the
                         last close of the disk device.  (Keep if yes is spec-
                         ified, drop if no is specified.)

     listwedges [-e] [-q]
                         List all of the wedges configured on the specified
                         disk.  With -e exit with a non-zero exit status if
                         there are no wedges configured on that disk.  With -q
                         (quiet mode) there is no output related to the wedges
                         that do, or do not, exist.

     makewedges          Delete all wedges configured on the specified disk,
                         and autodiscover the wedges again.  Wedges that are
                         in use are not deleted and conflicting or overlapping
                         wedges are not created.  You need to list wedges to
                         find out what has changed.

     setcache none | r | w | rw [save]
                         Set the cache enables for the specified device.  The
                         enables are as follows:

                               none    Disable all caches on the disk.

                               r       Enable the read cache, and disable all
                                       other caches on the disk.

                               w       Enable the write cache, and disable all
                                       other caches on the disk.

                               rw      Enable both the read and write caches
                                       on the disk.

                               save    If specified, and the cache enables are
                                       savable, saves the cache enables in the
                                       disk's non-volatile parameter storage.

     strategy [name]     Get and set the disk I/O scheduler (buffer queue
                         strategy) on the drive.  If you do not provide a name
                         argument, the currently selected strategy will be
                         shown.  To set the bufq strategy, the name argument
                         must be specified.  name must be the name of one of
                         the built-in kernel disk I/O schedulers.  To get the
                         list of supported schedulers, use the following com-
                         mand:

                               $ sysctl kern.bufq.strategies

     synccache [force]   Causes the cache on the disk to be synchronized,
                         flushing all dirty write cache blocks to the media.
                         If force is specified, the cache synchronization com-
                         mand will be issued even if the kernel does not
                         believe that there are any dirty cache blocks in the
                         disk's cache.

     Note: The addwedge and delwedge commands only modify the in-kernel repre-
     sentation of disks; for modifying information on the disks themselves,
     refer to fdisk(8) or gpt(8).


SEE ALSO

     ioctl(2), dk(4), sd(4), wd(4), disklabel(5), atactl(8), fdisk(8), gpt(8),
     scsictl(8)


HISTORY

     The dkctl command first appeared in NetBSD 1.6.


AUTHORS

     The dkctl command was written by Jason R. Thorpe of Wasabi Systems, Inc.

NetBSD 10.99                    March 29, 2020                    NetBSD 10.99