source: chapter10/fstab.xml

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<!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
  %general-entities;
]>

<sect1 id="ch-bootable-fstab">
  <?dbhtml filename="fstab.html"?>

  <title>Creating the /etc/fstab File</title>

  <indexterm zone="ch-bootable-fstab">
    <primary sortas="e-/etc/fstab">/etc/fstab</primary>
  </indexterm>

  <para>The <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> file is used by some programs to
  determine where file systems are to be mounted by default, in which order, and
  which must be checked (for integrity errors) prior to mounting. Create a new
  file systems table like this:</para>

<screen revision="sysv"><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/fstab &lt;&lt; "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/fstab

# file system  mount-point    type     options             dump  fsck
#                                                                order

/dev/<replaceable>&lt;xxx&gt;</replaceable>     /              <replaceable>&lt;fff&gt;</replaceable>    defaults            1     1
/dev/<replaceable>&lt;yyy&gt;</replaceable>     swap           swap     pri=1               0     0
proc           /proc          proc     nosuid,noexec,nodev 0     0
sysfs          /sys           sysfs    nosuid,noexec,nodev 0     0
devpts         /dev/pts       devpts   gid=5,mode=620      0     0
tmpfs          /run           tmpfs    defaults            0     0
devtmpfs       /dev           devtmpfs mode=0755,nosuid    0     0
tmpfs          /dev/shm       tmpfs    nosuid,nodev        0     0
cgroup2        /sys/fs/cgroup cgroup2  nosuid,noexec,nodev 0     0

# End /etc/fstab</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>

<screen revision="systemd"><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/fstab &lt;&lt; "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/fstab

# file system  mount-point  type     options             dump  fsck
#                                                              order

/dev/<replaceable>&lt;xxx&gt;</replaceable>     /            <replaceable>&lt;fff&gt;</replaceable>    defaults            1     1
/dev/<replaceable>&lt;yyy&gt;</replaceable>     swap         swap     pri=1               0     0

# End /etc/fstab</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>

  <para>Replace <replaceable>&lt;xxx&gt;</replaceable>,
  <replaceable>&lt;yyy&gt;</replaceable>, and <replaceable>&lt;fff&gt;</replaceable>
  with the values appropriate for the system, for example, <filename
  class="partition">sda2</filename>, <filename
  class="partition">sda5</filename>, and <systemitem
  class="filesystem">ext4</systemitem>. For details on the six
  fields in this file, see <ulink role='man' url='&man;fstab.5'>fstab(5)</ulink>.</para>

  <para>Filesystems with MS-DOS or Windows origin (i.e. vfat, ntfs, smbfs,
  cifs, iso9660, udf) need a special option, utf8, in order for non-ASCII
  characters in file names to be interpreted properly. For non-UTF-8 locales,
  the value of <option>iocharset</option> should be set to be the same as the
  character set of the locale, adjusted in such a way that the kernel
  understands it.  This works if the relevant character set definition (found
  under File systems -&gt; Native Language Support when configuring the kernel)
  has been compiled into the kernel or built as a module. However, if the
  character set of the locale is UTF-8, the corresponding option
  <option>iocharset=utf8</option> would make the file system case sensitive. To
  fix this, use the special option <option>utf8</option> instead of
  <option>iocharset=utf8</option>, for UTF-8 locales. The
  <quote>codepage</quote> option is also needed for vfat and smbfs filesystems.
  It should be set to the codepage number used under MS-DOS in your country.
  For example, in order to mount USB flash drives, a ru_RU.KOI8-R user would
  need the following in the options portion of its mount line in
  <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>:</para>

<screen><literal>noauto,user,quiet,showexec,codepage=866,iocharset=koi8r</literal></screen>

  <para>The corresponding options fragment for ru_RU.UTF-8 users is:</para>

<screen><literal>noauto,user,quiet,showexec,codepage=866,utf8</literal></screen>

  <para>Note that using <option>iocharset</option> is the default for
  <literal>iso8859-1</literal> (which keeps the file system case
  insensitive), and the <option>utf8</option> option tells
  the kernel to convert the file names using UTF-8 so they can be
  interpreted in the UTF-8 locale.</para>

  <!--note>
    <para>In the latter case, the kernel emits the following message:</para>

<screen><computeroutput>FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems,
    filesystem will be case sensitive!</computeroutput></screen>

    <para>This negative recommendation should be ignored, since all other values
    of the <quote>iocharset</quote> option result in wrong display of filenames in
    UTF-8 locales.</para>
  </note-->

  <para>It is also possible to specify default codepage and iocharset values for
  some filesystems during kernel configuration. The relevant parameters
  are named
  <quote>Default NLS Option</quote> (<option>CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT)</option>,
  <quote>Default Remote NLS Option</quote> (<option>CONFIG_SMB_NLS_DEFAULT</option>),
  <quote>Default codepage for FAT</quote> (<option>CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE</option>), and
  <quote>Default iocharset for FAT</quote> (<option>CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET</option>).
  There is no way to specify these settings for the
  ntfs filesystem at kernel compilation time.</para>

  <para>It is possible to make the ext3 filesystem reliable across power
  failures for some hard disk types.  To do this, add the
  <option>barrier=1</option> mount option to the appropriate entry in
  <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>.  To check if the disk drive supports
  this option, run
  <ulink url="&blfs-book;general/hdparm.html">hdparm</ulink>
  on the applicable disk drive.  For example, if:</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep NCQ</userinput></screen>

  <para>returns non-empty output, the option is supported.</para>

  <para>Note: Logical Volume Management (LVM) based partitions cannot use the
  <option>barrier</option> option.</para>

</sect1>