order of mounting in /etc/fstab

[Andrew_4]

Hi everyone...

I've got a loopback FS setup as the last entry in /etc/fstab, but it mounts before the 'special directory' gets mounted (which is listed earlier in the /etc/fstab... !

I always thought that I could alter the order of mount by changing the /etc/fstab... but it seems that it not always the case.

I've noticed in the man 1m mount :

"File systems are not necessarily mounted in the order listed in /etc/fstab."

Is there a way to change the order, if I can't rely on /etc/fstab ? What are the 'internals' of this mount procedure reading the /etc/fstab ?

Thanks for your help! points will be awarded.

Andrew

[Animesh Chakraborty]

Hi Andrew,
Good question!
Try man page of getmntent and getfsmnt.

This may give some idea.


best of luck
Animesh

[Ravi_8]

Hi, Andrew
nice question.
file systems are not necessarily to mount as shown in fstab file. when the system boots the required file systems are mounted according to necessity, as for as i know / will be mounted first, followed by /usr,/tmp rests of the file systems are afterwards.

[eran maor]

Hi

i look at the man page of the fstab and over there the said :
The order of entries in /etc/fstab is important only for entries
without a pass number field. Entries without a pass number are
sequentially checked by fsck (see fsck(1m)) after the entries with a
pass number have been checked.

i didnt found any guideline how the order need to be but i recomment that all the nfs and cdrom filesystem will be and the end of the file .

[Victor BERRIDGE]

Hi,
I used to use a sequence number, if I remember right Id say its the last number you see on each line of fstab which used to be the priority (HPUX 9 ? ) so I would put give a 2 to the one you want mounted first and 4 for the one that shoud be mounted after, lest me check...
/dev/r5vg01/lvol1 /opt/oracle vxfs rw,suid,delaylog,datainlog 0 2
/dev/r5vg01/lvol2 /opt/oracle/product/7.2.3 vxfs rw,suid,delaylog,datainlog 0 3

Nerver failed yet...

All the best
Victor

[harry d brown jr]

Victor, we use the same method, by adding a "mount order" (PASS NUMBER for fsck) number at the end of the fstab entries and it hasn't failed us either (yet ?).

[harry d brown jr]

Also, if you use the "Pass Number", make sure you do not set any to zero, because fsck will ignore those.

[Andrew_4]

Thanks you all for your suggestions.. but the 'pass' option in the /etc/fstab only affects the order of the fsck'ing, and doesn't affect the mount order.

I understand that it will take a fraction of a second longer to mount a large file system, than it will to mount a loopback... which means this problem could be experienced by many who use loopback filesystems. But it doesn't seem that loopback file systems have any functionality to delay the mounting...

Doesn't look like there is an solution to this problem !!

Looks like i'm going to have to script in the mounting of loopback into the RC scripts.

Andrew

[jago_1]

I need to know this because....

I am mounting

/ hda6
/usr sdb3
/usr/portage sda1

So they need to go in that order.

I'm amazed this can't be done!!

[Bill Hassell]

The actual order is indeterminate (see the man page for mount_vxfs and fstab). However, mount seems to be consistent so you can move the dependent entries around (usually towards the top, above the parent directory's mountpoint) until it mounts in the right order.

The alternative is to use the noauto option in fstab and use a startup script to mount it in the right order.