parted

• fdisk
• gdisk
• grub
• grub2
• sfdisk

Note: from a personal point-of-view, I use gdisk over parted; gdisk lets you examine changes more closely, while parted commands will often not ask for prompts.

Syntax:

parted [options] [device [command [options …] …]

Options:

• -l - list partition layouts on all block devices
• -a or –alignment - set alignment type for newly created partitions
  • none - use the minimum amount allowed by the disk type
  • cylinder - align partitions to cylinders
  • minimal - use minimum alignment as given by the disk topology information
  • optimal - use optimum alignment as given by the disk topology information

Commands:

• [device] - block device to use; if none given, uses first block device
• [command [options]]
  • print - display the partition table
  • mkpart part-type [fs-type] start end - create a new partition of type primary, logical, or extended, beginning at start and ending at end. Default unit is megabytes.
  • align-check type partition - check if partition satisifies the alignment contraint of type
  • mklabel lable-type - create a new disklabel / partition table of label-type. fex: bsd, gpt, msdos
  • name partition name - set the name of partition to name - supported by GPT, but not MBR
  • resizepart start end - set the end position of partition – this does not modify the filesystem on the partition
  • rm partition - delete the partition
  • select device - choose device as the current one to edit
  • set partition flag state - set the flag on a partition: boot, root, swap, hidden, raid, lvm, legacy_boot, etc. State should be either 'on' or 'off'.
  • unit unit - set unit as the display type; fex: 's' for sectors, 'B' for bytes, 'kB', 'MB', 'GB', 'TB', '%' of device size
  • toggle partition flag - toggle the state of flag on a partition

Display the partition table of /dev/sdc:

parted /dev/sdc print

Create a new, empty partition table on a device with GPT. Note that this will remove all existing partitions.

parted /dev/sdc mklabel gpt

Sample walkthrough

Final format: 1 MB boot partition used by GRUB, a 128 MB partition for the kernel and GRUB2 cnofig, mounted by OS as /boot, a 2 GB swap partition, and the remaining space for the root partition, mounted at /.

Wipe the partition table, create a 2MB primary partition used by GRUB2 (not /boot), starting at the 1st MB and ending at the 2nd, name it grub, and set the bios_grub label on:

parted /dev/sdc mklabel gpt
parted /dev/sdc mkpart primary 1 3 unit MB name 1 grub set 1 bios_grub on
parted /dev/sdc mkpart primary 3 131 name 2 boot
parted /dev/sdc mkpart primary 131 2179 name 3 swap