kpartx

Add partition mappings

$ kpartx -a [whole_disk.img]

Delete partition mappings

$ kpartx -d [whole_disk.img]

List partition mappings

$ kpartx -l [whole_disk.img]

kpartx [-a | -d | -l] [-v] wholedisk

This tool, derived from util-linux’ partx, reads partition tables on specified device and create device maps over partitions segments detected. It is called from hotplug upon device maps creation and deletion.

-a

Add partition mappings

-r

Read-only partition mappings

-d

Delete partition mappings

-l

List partition mappings that would be added -a

-p

set device name-partition number delimiter

-g

force GUID partition table (GPT)

-v

Operate verbosely

To mount all the partitions in a raw disk image:

kpartx -av disk.img

This will output lines such as:

loop3p1 : 0 20964762 /dev/loop3 63

The loop3p1 is the name of a device file under /dev/mapper which you can use to access the partition, for example to fsck it:

fsck /dev/mapper/loop3p1

When you’re done, you need to remove the devices:

kpartx -d disk.img

This man page was assembled By Patrick Caulfield for the Debian project. From documentation provided by the multipath author Christophe Varoqui, <christophe.varoqui@opensvc.com> and others.

multipath(8) multipathd(8) hotplug(8)