Options common to all filesystems

Options common to all filesystems

As the filesystems in /etc/fstab will eventually be mounted using mount(8) it isn't surprising that the options field simply contains a comma-separated list of options which will be passed directly to mount when it tries to mount the filesystem.

The options common to all filesystems are:

atime / noatime / relatime / strictatime (Linux-specific)

The Unix structure records when files are last accessed (atime), modified (mtime), and created (ctime). One result is that is written every time a file is read, which has been heavily criticized for causing performance degradation and increased wear. However, atime is used by some applications and desired by some users, and thus is configurable as atime (update on access), noatime (do not update), or (in Linux) relatime (update atime if older than mtime). Through Linux 2.6.29, atime was the default; as of 2.6.30 (9 June 2009), relatime is the default.

auto / noauto

With the auto option, the device will be mounted automatically at bootup or when the mount -a command is issued. auto is the default option. If you don't want the device to be mounted automatically, use the noauto option in /etc/fstab. With noauto, the device can be only mounted explicitly.

dev / nodev

Interpret/do not interpret block special devices on the filesystem.

exec / noexec

exec lets you execute binaries that are on that partition, whereas noexec doesn't let you do that. noexec might be useful for a partition that contains no binaries, like /var, or contains binaries you don't want to execute on your system, or that can't even be executed on your system. Last might be the case of a Windows partition.

ro

Mount read-only.

rw

Mount the filesystem read-write. Again, using this option might alleviate confusion on the part of new Linux users who are frustrated because they can't write to their floppies, Windows partitions, or other media.

sync / async

How the input and output to the filesystem should be done. sync means it's done synchronously. If you look at the example fstab, you'll notice that this is the option used with the floppy. In plain English, this means that when you, for example, copy a file to the floppy, the changes are physically written to the floppy at the same time you issue the copy command.

suid / nosuid

Permit/Block the operation of , and bits.

user / users / nouser

user permits any user to mount the filesystem. This automatically implies noexec, nosuid, nodev unless overridden. If nouser is specified, only root can mount the filesystem. If users is specified, every user in group users will be able to unmount the volume.

owner (This is Linux-specific)

Permit the owner of device to mount.

defaults

Use default settings. Default settings are defined per file system at the file system level. For ext3 file systems these can be set with the tune2fs command. The normal default for Ext3 file systems is equivalent to rw,suid,dev,exec,auto,nouser,async(no acl support). Modern Red Hat based systems set acl support as default on the root file system but not on user created Ext3 file systems. Some file systems such as XFS enable acls by default. Default file system mount attributes can be over ridden in /etc/fstab.