What is "/etc/fstab" and how it is important for "mount" command.

fstab stands for File System Table, contains device or partitions details and indicates how they are to be initialized. This file is mostly used by mount command.

Let us have a look at what each column means on this file:

Sample content of /etc/fstab (on Solaris it is /etc/vfstab)

1st Column (device-name): This column contains devices or partitions name

2nd Column (mount point):Mount point of device or partition

3rd Column (fs-type): The type of file system

4th Column (mount-options): Mount options such as ro, rw, noauto, user, exec and acl, etc. use man

5th Column (dump-frequency): useful when we use dump command for backup larger numbers than one are to avoid too many backups of idle file-systems

6th Column (pass-number): This tells on which order, the fsck to be done while booting. "0" zero means don't do fsck.

Whenever we issue mount -a, it reads the /etc/fstab and mount the file systems according to the settings. If it is "noauto" on mount-options for any file systems, it will not mount. Default is auto.

For more, do a "man mount"

Have a fun ....

Sikkandar.Unix at Gmail.Com