xref: /freebsd/share/man/man5/fstab.5 (revision 724b4bfdf1306e4f2c451b6d146fe0fe0353b2c8)
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32.\"     @(#)fstab.5	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd October 11, 2012
36.Dt FSTAB 5
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm fstab
40.Nd static information about the file systems
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.In fstab.h
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The file
45.Nm
46contains descriptive information about the various file
47systems.
48.Nm
49is only read by programs, and not written;
50it is the duty of the system administrator to properly create
51and maintain this file.
52Each file system is described on a separate line;
53fields on each line are separated by tabs or spaces.
54The order of records in
55.Nm
56is important because
57.Xr fsck 8 ,
58.Xr mount 8 ,
59and
60.Xr umount 8
61sequentially iterate through
62.Nm
63doing their thing.
64.Pp
65The first field,
66.Pq Fa fs_spec ,
67describes the special device or
68remote file system to be mounted.
69The contents are decoded by the
70.Xr strunvis 3
71function.
72This allows using spaces or tabs in the device name which would be
73interpreted as field separators otherwise.
74.Pp
75The second field,
76.Pq Fa fs_file ,
77describes the mount point for the file system.
78For swap partitions, this field should be specified as
79.Dq none .
80The contents are decoded by the
81.Xr strunvis 3
82function, as above.
83.Pp
84The third field,
85.Pq Fa fs_vfstype ,
86describes the type of the file system.
87The system can support various file system types.
88Only the root, /usr, and /tmp file systems need be statically
89compiled into the kernel;
90everything else will be automatically loaded at mount
91time.
92(Exception: the FFS cannot currently be demand-loaded.)
93Some people still prefer to statically
94compile other file systems as well.
95.Pp
96The fourth field,
97.Pq Fa fs_mntops ,
98describes the mount options associated with the file system.
99It is formatted as a comma separated list of options.
100It contains at least the type of mount (see
101.Fa fs_type
102below) plus any additional options appropriate to the file system type.
103See the options flag
104.Pq Fl o
105in the
106.Xr mount 8
107page and the file system specific page, such as
108.Xr mount_nfs 8 ,
109for additional options that may be specified.
110All options that can be given to the file system specific mount commands
111can be used in
112.Nm
113as well.
114They just need to be formatted a bit differently.
115The arguments of the
116.Fl o
117option can be used without the preceding
118.Fl o
119flag.
120Other options need both the file system specific flag and its argument,
121separated by an equal sign.
122For example, mounting an
123.Xr msdosfs 5
124filesystem, the options
125.Bd -literal -offset indent
126-o sync -o noatime -m 644 -M 755 -u foo -g bar
127.Ed
128.Pp
129should be written as
130.Bd -literal -offset indent
131sync,noatime,-m=644,-M=755,-u=foo,-g=bar
132.Ed
133.Pp
134in the option field of
135.Nm .
136.Pp
137If the options
138.Dq userquota
139and/or
140.Dq groupquota
141are specified,
142the file system is automatically processed by the
143.Xr quotacheck 8
144command, and user and/or group disk quotas are enabled with
145.Xr quotaon 8 .
146By default,
147file system quotas are maintained in files named
148.Pa quota.user
149and
150.Pa quota.group
151which are located at the root of the associated file system.
152These defaults may be overridden by putting an equal sign
153and an alternative absolute pathname following the quota option.
154Thus, if the user quota file for
155.Pa /tmp
156is stored in
157.Pa /var/quotas/tmp.user ,
158this location can be specified as:
159.Bd -literal -offset indent
160userquota=/var/quotas/tmp.user
161.Ed
162.Pp
163If the option
164.Dq failok
165is specified,
166the system will ignore any error which happens during the mount of that filesystem,
167which would otherwise cause the system to drop into single user mode.
168This option is implemented by the
169.Xr mount 8
170command and will not be passed to the kernel.
171.Pp
172If the option
173.Dq noauto
174is specified, the file system will not be automatically
175mounted at system startup.
176Note that, for network file systems
177of third party types
178(i.e., types supported by additional software
179not included in the base system)
180to be automatically mounted at system startup,
181the
182.Va extra_netfs_types
183.Xr rc.conf 5
184variable must be used to extend the
185.Xr rc 8
186startup script's list of network file system types.
187.Pp
188The type of the mount is extracted from the
189.Fa fs_mntops
190field and stored separately in the
191.Fa fs_type
192field (it is not deleted from the
193.Fa fs_mntops
194field).
195If
196.Fa fs_type
197is
198.Dq rw
199or
200.Dq ro
201then the file system whose name is given in the
202.Fa fs_file
203field is normally mounted read-write or read-only on the
204specified special file.
205If
206.Fa fs_type
207is
208.Dq sw
209then the special file is made available as a piece of swap
210space by the
211.Xr swapon 8
212command at the end of the system reboot procedure.
213The fields other than
214.Fa fs_spec
215and
216.Fa fs_type
217are unused.
218If
219.Fa fs_type
220is specified as
221.Dq xx
222the entry is ignored.
223This is useful to show disk partitions which are currently unused.
224.Pp
225The fifth field,
226.Pq Fa fs_freq ,
227is used for these file systems by the
228.Xr dump 8
229command to determine which file systems need to be dumped.
230If the fifth field is not present, a value of zero is returned and
231.Nm dump
232will assume that the file system does not need to be dumped.
233If the fifth field is greater than 0, then it specifies the number of days
234between dumps for this file system.
235.Pp
236The sixth field,
237.Pq Fa fs_passno ,
238is used by the
239.Xr fsck 8
240and
241.Xr quotacheck 8
242programs to determine the order in which file system and quota
243checks are done at reboot time.
244The
245.Fa fs_passno
246field can be any value between 0 and
247.Ql INT_MAX Ns -1 .
248.Pp
249The root file system should be specified with a
250.Fa fs_passno
251of 1, and other file systems should have a
252.Fa fs_passno
253of 2 or greater.
254A file system with a
255.Fa fs_passno
256value of 1 is always checked sequentially and be completed before
257another file system is processed, and it will be processed before
258all file systems with a larger
259.Fa fs_passno .
260.Pp
261For any given value of
262.Fa fs_passno ,
263file systems within a drive will be checked sequentially,
264but file systems on different drives will be checked at the
265same time to utilize parallelism available in the hardware.
266Once all file system checks are complete for the current
267.Fa fs_passno ,
268the same process will start over for the next
269.Fa fs_passno .
270.Pp
271If the sixth field is not present or is zero,
272a value of zero is returned and
273.Xr fsck 8
274and
275.Xr quotacheck 8
276will assume that the file system does not need to be checked.
277.Pp
278The
279.Fa fs_passno
280field can be used to implement finer control when
281the system utilities may determine that the file system resides
282on a different physical device, when it actually does not, as with a
283.Xr ccd 4
284device.
285All file systems with a lower
286.Fa fs_passno
287value will be completed before starting on file systems with a
288higher
289.Fa fs_passno
290value.
291E.g. all file systems with a
292.Fa fs_passno
293of 2 will be completed before any file systems with a
294.Fa fs_passno
295of 3 or greater are started.
296Gaps are allowed between the different
297.Fa fs_passno
298values.
299E.g. file systems listed in
300.Pa /etc/fstab
301may have
302.Fa fs_passno
303values such as 0, 1, 2, 15, 100, 200, 300, and may appear in any order
304within
305.Pa /etc/fstab .
306.Bd -literal
307#define	FSTAB_RW	"rw"	/* read/write device */
308#define	FSTAB_RQ	"rq"	/* read/write with quotas */
309#define	FSTAB_RO	"ro"	/* read-only device */
310#define	FSTAB_SW	"sw"	/* swap device */
311#define	FSTAB_XX	"xx"	/* ignore totally */
312
313struct fstab {
314	char	*fs_spec;	/* block special device name */
315	char	*fs_file;	/* file system path prefix */
316	char	*fs_vfstype;	/* File system type, ufs, nfs */
317	char	*fs_mntops;	/* Mount options ala -o */
318	char	*fs_type;	/* FSTAB_* from fs_mntops */
319	int	fs_freq;	/* dump frequency, in days */
320	int	fs_passno;	/* pass number on parallel fsck */
321};
322.Ed
323.Pp
324The proper way to read records from
325.Pa fstab
326is to use the routines
327.Xr getfsent 3 ,
328.Xr getfsspec 3 ,
329.Xr getfstype 3 ,
330and
331.Xr getfsfile 3 .
332.Sh FILES
333.Bl -tag -width /etc/fstab -compact
334.It Pa /etc/fstab
335The file
336.Nm
337resides in
338.Pa /etc .
339.El
340.Sh SEE ALSO
341.Xr getfsent 3 ,
342.Xr getvfsbyname 3 ,
343.Xr ccd 4 ,
344.Xr dump 8 ,
345.Xr fsck 8 ,
346.Xr mount 8 ,
347.Xr quotacheck 8 ,
348.Xr quotaon 8 ,
349.Xr strunvis 3 ,
350.Xr swapon 8 ,
351.Xr umount 8
352.Sh HISTORY
353The
354.Nm
355file format appeared in
356.Bx 4.0 .
357