On Thu, 2008-04-03 at 09:34 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 18:22 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> >> Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> >>> I have an external USB drive permanently attached. If for some reason
> >>> it's turned off, the boot process will log some errors and continue.
> >>> This is my fstab line:
> >>>
> >>> LABEL=/xtra /xtra ext3 defaults 1 2
> >>>
> >>> Note that it's ext3. ntfs-3g via FUSE may complicate things, I don't
> >>> know.
> >>>
> >> It could also be that my experience is out of date. I have not tried
> >> this since I was bitten by it on a system I was troubleshooting. Or
> >> it could be that using the LABEL=<label> form is more tolerant then
> >> the <device> form. I guess I need to do some experimenting when I
> >> have time.
> >
> > The LABEL=<label> form is to guarantee that the correct device will be
> > mounted. /dev/<whatever> is unreliable for USB because devices can come
> > online in random order.
> >
> > poc
> >
> Is there a difference in how mount handles things if the drive is
> missing if you use the LABEL= form? I know in the past, the system
> would not boot normally if you used the device form and the drive
> was not there.
It's a while since I've tried it without the LABEL= form. Remember that
Fedora now recommends using labels (since F7 I think).
With the LABEL= form I get:
# umount /xtra
-- now turn off external drive
# mount /xtra
mount: special device LABEL=/xtra does not exist
poc
