[lug] /etc/fstab in the modern world

[P. Scott DeVos]

Elyse M. Grasso wrote:
> I'm using KRUD FC2 on a dual boot system.
> 
> I find RedHat's use of labels instead on devices in /etc/fstab annoying, since 
> it hides potentially useful information. Is there any reason NOT to switch 
> the LABEL entries back to /dev/hda? entries?
> 
The reason to use labels is that on modern systems where drives may come 
and go, you cannot be sure of where in /dev it will reside.  The label 
scheme makes it very easy to keep track of a file system even if it 
moves around.

I'll give you an example.  I client of mine does backups on 
hot-swappable removeable SATA drives.  If the backup drive is in the 
slot when the computer boots, then the main drive comes up as /dev/sdb, 
but if the backup drive is missing, it comes up as /dev/sda.  Because 
every thing is labelled and mounted by label, it doesn't matter.

I label the filesystems on the backup drives as backup, then I mount 
them with

mount -L backup /mnt/backup

prior to backup.

Recently I wanted to move the /home partition to another hard drive on a 
machine.  After copying the data,  I just did the following:

e2label /dev/hda2 old/home  <==this fs was labelled /home
e2label /dev/sdb1 /home

You can check the label of a file system with

e2label /dev/hda1

for example.

One inconvenience is that I do not know how to get a list of all the 
labels by /dev entry or vice-versa.  If someone knows how, please let me 
know!