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WIPEFS(8)		     System Administration		     WIPEFS(8)

NAME
       wipefs - wipe a signature from a device

SYNOPSIS
       wipefs [-ahnptV] [-o offset] device

DESCRIPTION
       wipefs  can erase filesystem, raid or partition table signatures (magic
       strings) from the specified device to make the signature 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 lists the first offset where a magic
       string  has  been  detected.  The  device is not scanned for additional
       magic strings for the same filesystem. It's possible that after	wipefs
       -o  <offset>  will be the same filesystem or partition table visible by
       another magic string on another offset.

       When used with option -a then all for libblkid  visible	magic  strings
       are erased.

OPTIONS
       -a, --all
	      Erase  all  available  signatures. This set of erased signatures
	      could be restricted by -t <list> option.

       -h, --help
	      Print help 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 binary (2^N) suffixes
	      KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, PiB and EiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g.  "K"
	      has  the	same  meaning as "KiB") or decimal (10^N) suffixes KB,
	      MB, GB, PB and EB.

       -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'.

       -t, --types list
	      Used to limit the set of printed or erased signatures. More than
	      one  type	 may be specified in a comma-separated list.  The list
	      of types or individual types can be prefixed with 'no' to	 spec‐
	      ify  the	types  on  which  no  action should be taken. For more
	      details see mount(8).

       -V, --version
	      Output version information and exit.

AUTHOR
       Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>.

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

SEE ALSO
       blkid(8) findfs(8)

util-linux			 October 2009			     WIPEFS(8)

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