Mounting, Partitioning, and Configuring File Systems

Support knowledgebase (maddin_fstab)
Under Linux, several file systems and file system types (e.g. ext2, minix, msdos, vfat ,iso9660) can be combined to form a large overall file system under /.

Since Linux does not have logical drives such as e.g. in DOS (C:, D:, etc.), this mechanism is necessary. The Linux system regards all physical drives, including hard disks, floppy drives, CD-ROM drives, MO, ZIP drives, etc. as file systems that are integrated in the parent file system /.

This procedure is called mounting. The act of detaching a file system from the / file system is referred to as unmounting.

Prerequisites for including and mounting file systems:

Please pay attention to the sequence of the file systems in the list. The sequence in the file /etc/fstab should correspond to the subsequent mounting sequence.

The correct sequence is usually determined by YaST; for example, /usr/local is mounted after /usr. The command mount can not determine the correct sequence and mounts file systems in the order of their appearance in /etc/fstab.

The options user and noauto are interesting for the use of mount and /etc/fstab:

user allows a file system to be mounted/unmounted by any user (this is especially interesting for the CD-ROM drive).

noauto prevents the indicated partition from being mounted automatically at system start-up (i.e. mount -a), and requires an explicit manual mount. This is useful for media that may not always be available at system start-up (e.g. CD-ROM).


Keywords: PARTITION, FILESYSTEM, FSTAB, ETC, MOUNT, AUTOMOUNT

SDB-maddin_fstab, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 13. Feb 1996
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 15. Apr 2002 by sdb (sdb_gen 1.40.0)