7.15. Creating the /etc/fstab File

The /etc/fstab file is used by some programs to determine where file systems are to be mounted by default, which must be checked, and in which order. Create a new file systems table like this:

cat > ${CLFS}/etc/fstab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/fstab

# file system  mount-point     type        options          dump  fsck
#                                                                 order

/dev/[xxx]        /            [fff]       defaults         1     1
/dev/[yyy]        swap         swap        pri=1            0     0
proc           /proc           proc        defaults         0     0
sysfs          /sys            sysfs       defaults         0     0
devpts         /dev/pts        devpts      gid=4,mode=620   0     0
shm            /dev/shm        tmpfs       defaults         0     0
none           /proc/openprom  openpromfs  defaults         0     0
# End /etc/fstab
EOF

Replace [xxx], [yyy], and [fff] with the values appropriate for the system, for example, hda2, hda5, and ext2. For details on the six fields in this file, see man 5 fstab.

The /dev/shm mount point for tmpfs is included to allow enabling POSIX-shared memory. The kernel must have the required support built into it for this to work (more about this is in the next section). Please note that very little software currently uses POSIX-shared memory. Therefore, consider the /dev/shm mount point optional. For more information, see Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt in the kernel source tree.