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2 <!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
4 <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
8 <sect1 id="ch-bootable-fstab">
9 <?dbhtml filename="fstab.html"?>
11 <title>Creating the /etc/fstab File</title>
13 <indexterm zone="ch-bootable-fstab">
14 <primary sortas="e-/etc/fstab">/etc/fstab</primary>
17 <para>The <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> file is used by some programs to
18 determine where file systems are to be mounted by default, in which order, and
19 which must be checked (for integrity errors) prior to mounting. Create a new
20 file systems table like this:</para>
22 <screen revision="sysv"><userinput>cat > /etc/fstab << "EOF"
23 <literal># Begin /etc/fstab
25 # file system mount-point type options dump fsck
28 /dev/<replaceable><xxx></replaceable> / <replaceable><fff></replaceable> defaults 1 1
29 /dev/<replaceable><yyy></replaceable> swap swap pri=1 0 0
30 proc /proc proc nosuid,noexec,nodev 0 0
31 sysfs /sys sysfs nosuid,noexec,nodev 0 0
32 devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
33 tmpfs /run tmpfs defaults 0 0
34 devtmpfs /dev devtmpfs mode=0755,nosuid 0 0
36 # End /etc/fstab</literal>
37 EOF</userinput></screen>
39 <screen revision="systemd"><userinput>cat > /etc/fstab << "EOF"
40 <literal># Begin /etc/fstab
42 # file system mount-point type options dump fsck
45 /dev/<replaceable><xxx></replaceable> / <replaceable><fff></replaceable> defaults 1 1
46 /dev/<replaceable><yyy></replaceable> swap swap pri=1 0 0
48 # End /etc/fstab</literal>
49 EOF</userinput></screen>
51 <para>Replace <replaceable><xxx></replaceable>,
52 <replaceable><yyy></replaceable>, and <replaceable><fff></replaceable>
53 with the values appropriate for the system, for example, <filename
54 class="partition">sda2</filename>, <filename
55 class="partition">sda5</filename>, and <systemitem
56 class="filesystem">ext4</systemitem>. For details on the six
57 fields in this file, see <command>man 5 fstab</command>.</para>
59 <para>Filesystems with MS-DOS or Windows origin (i.e. vfat, ntfs, smbfs,
60 cifs, iso9660, udf) need a special option, utf8, in order for non-ASCII
61 characters in file names to be interpreted properly. For non-UTF-8 locales,
62 the value of <option>iocharset</option> should be set to be the same as the
63 character set of the locale, adjusted in such a way that the kernel
64 understands it. This works if the relevant character set definition (found
65 under File systems -> Native Language Support when configuring the kernel)
66 has been compiled into the kernel or built as a module. However, if the
67 character set of the locale is UTF-8, the corresponding option
68 <option>iocharset=utf8</option> would make the file system case sensitive. To
69 fix this, use the special option <option>utf8</option> instead of
70 <option>iocharset=utf8</option>, for UTF-8 locales. The
71 <quote>codepage</quote> option is also needed for vfat and smbfs filesystems.
72 It should be set to the codepage number used under MS-DOS in your country.
73 For example, in order to mount USB flash drives, a ru_RU.KOI8-R user would
74 need the following in the options portion of its mount line in
75 <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>:</para>
77 <screen><literal>noauto,user,quiet,showexec,codepage=866,iocharset=koi8r</literal></screen>
79 <para>The corresponding options fragment for ru_RU.UTF-8 users is:</para>
81 <screen><literal>noauto,user,quiet,showexec,codepage=866,utf8</literal></screen>
83 <para>Note that using <option>iocharset</option> is the default for
84 <literal>iso8859-1</literal> (which keeps the file system case
85 insensitive), and the <option>utf8</option> option tells
86 the kernel to convert the file names using UTF-8 so they can be
87 interpreted in the UTF-8 locale.</para>
90 <para>In the latter case, the kernel emits the following message:</para>
92 <screen><computeroutput>FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems,
93 filesystem will be case sensitive!</computeroutput></screen>
95 <para>This negative recommendation should be ignored, since all other values
96 of the <quote>iocharset</quote> option result in wrong display of filenames in
100 <para>It is also possible to specify default codepage and iocharset values for
101 some filesystems during kernel configuration. The relevant parameters
103 <quote>Default NLS Option</quote> (<option>CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT)</option>,
104 <quote>Default Remote NLS Option</quote> (<option>CONFIG_SMB_NLS_DEFAULT</option>),
105 <quote>Default codepage for FAT</quote> (<option>CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE</option>), and
106 <quote>Default iocharset for FAT</quote> (<option>CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET</option>).
107 There is no way to specify these settings for the
108 ntfs filesystem at kernel compilation time.</para>
110 <para>It is possible to make the ext3 filesystem reliable across power
111 failures for some hard disk types. To do this, add the
112 <option>barrier=1</option> mount option to the appropriate entry in
113 <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>. To check if the disk drive supports
115 <ulink url="&blfs-book;general/hdparm.html">hdparm</ulink>
116 on the applicable disk drive. For example, if:</para>
118 <screen role="nodump"><userinput>hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep NCQ</userinput></screen>
120 <para>returns non-empty output, the option is supported.</para>
122 <para>Note: Logical Volume Management (LVM) based partitions cannot use the
123 <option>barrier</option> option.</para>