illumos: manual page: mkdir.1

MKDIR(1) User Commands MKDIR(1)

NAME

mkdir - make directories

SYNOPSIS

/usr/bin/mkdir
/usr/bin/mkdir [-m mode] [-p] dir...

ksh93
mkdir [-p] [-m mode] dir...

DESCRIPTION

/usr/bin/mkdir
The mkdir command creates the named directories in mode 777 (possibly
altered by the file mode creation mask umask(1)).

Standard entries in a directory (for instance, the files ".", for the
directory itself, and "..", for its parent) are made automatically.
mkdir cannot create these entries by name. Creation of a directory
requires write permission in the parent directory.

The owner-ID and group-ID of the new directories are set to the process's
effective user-ID and group-ID, respectively. mkdir calls the mkdir(2)
system call.

setgid and mkdir
To change the setgid bit on a newly created directory, you must use chmod
g+s or chmod g-s after executing mkdir.

The setgid bit setting is inherited from the parent directory.

ksh93
The mkdir built-in in ksh93 is associated with the /bin and /usr/bin
paths. It is invoked when mkdir is executed without a pathname prefix and
the pathname search finds a /bin/mkdir or /usr/bin/mkdir executable.
mkdir creates one or more directories. By default, the mode of created
directories is a=rwx minus the bits set in umask(1).

OPTIONS

/usr/bin/mkdir
The following options are supported by /usr/bin/mkdir:

-m mode
This option allows users to specify the mode to be used for
new directories. Choices for modes can be found in chmod(1).

-p
With this option, mkdir creates dir by creating all the non-
existing parent directories first. The mode given to
intermediate directories is the difference between 777 and the
bits set in the file mode creation mask. The difference,
however, must be at least 300 (write and execute permission
for the user).

ksh93
The following options are supported by the mkdir built-in in ksh93:

-m mode
--mode=mode
Set the mode of created directories to mode. mode is
symbolic or octal mode as in chmod(1). Relative modes
assume an initial mode of a=rwx.

-p
--parents
Create any missing intermediate pathname components. For
each dir operand that does not name an existing directory,
effects equivalent to those caused by the following
command shall occur:

mkdir -p -m $(umask -S),u+wx \
$(dirname dir) && mkdir [-m mode] dir

Where the -m mode option represents that option supplied
to the original invocation of mkdir, if any. Each dir
operand that names an existing directory is ignored
without error.

OPERANDS

The following operand is supported:

dir
A path name of a directory to be created.

USAGE

See largefile(7) for the description of the behavior of mkdir when
encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).

EXAMPLES

Example 1: Using mkdir

The following example:

example% mkdir -p ltr/jd/jan

creates the subdirectory structure ltr/jd/jan.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

See environ(7) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of mkdir: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
and NLSPATH.

EXIT STATUS

The following exit values are returned:

0
All the specified directories were created successfully or the -p
option was specified and all the specified directories now exist.

>0
An error occurred.

ATTRIBUTES