/etc/fstab skip on error

Question

Can I set an /etc/fstab with options=auto to be skipped if mounting fails?

The manual says, it will break the boot process if an entry with options=auto fails.

Without auto, it does not automatically mount the device on boot.

So how to make the auto entry to be ignored on failures?

Related: [How do I avoid the “S to Skip” message on boot?](http://askubuntu.com/q/120/78223) at Ubuntu SE — kenorb, May 28 '15 at 16:32

score 15 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 19 '15 at 20:49

15

I created a partition called /dev/sdb1 in my Ubuntu VM. But I didn’t create a filesystem for this partition and so of course it will not get mounted.

Then put following entry in fstab.

/dev/sdb1   /mnt/       auto    defaults,nobootwait     0   2

And rebooted VM. Server got rebooted with following error msg in syslog

suku@ubuntu-vm:~$ grep sdb1 /var/log/syslog
Jan 11 16:32:58 ubuntu-vm kernel: [    2.263540]  sdb: sdb1
Jan 11 16:32:59 ubuntu-vm kernel: [    4.403527] EXT3-fs (sdb1): error: can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sdb1.
Jan 11 16:32:59 ubuntu-vm kernel: [    4.410341] EXT4-fs (sdb1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
Jan 11 16:32:59 ubuntu-vm kernel: [    4.413978] FAT-fs (sdb1): bogus number of reserved sectors
Jan 11 16:32:59 ubuntu-vm kernel: [    4.414073] FAT-fs (sdb1): Can't find a valid FAT filesystem

What is nobootwait:

nobootwait can be applied to non-remote filesystems to explicitly instruct mountall(8) not to hold up the boot for them.

edited Jan 19 '15 at 20:49

Giacomo1968

3,522
25
38

answered Jan 11 '13 at 11:06

Suku

2,006
13
15

5

nobootwait doesn't work any longer in 16.04 – Antti Haapala Jan 09 '17 at 12:25
2

On rhel/centos 7, the nofail flag works – Andy Feb 12 '18 at 18:25
1

What is the correct flag to use on Ubuntu 18.04? – Aaron Franke Jan 26 '19 at 07:01
@AaronFranke , try: nofail,errors=continue – Vasin Yuriy Jan 01 '20 at 10:31

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 11 '13 at 10:43

2

Maybe it will be better to write a script to mount something after boot? For example, put string with noauto to fstab and mount it via rc.local

answered Jan 11 '13 at 10:43

dr-evil

377
1
5

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 02 '21 at 17:24

1

For some flavors nobootwait and for for example xfs file systems no work

Below work with UUID

UUID=718ef17e-5502-4a74-81fe-930d21f5507d /data xfs rw,noquota,nofail  0 2

answered Apr 02 '21 at 17:24

abkrim

407
6
18

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Jan 19 '15 at 20:50

0

I am not sure about your distro, but usually booting just waits with a timeout and then will boot without mounting. You can mount it automatically on run time using an udev rule, e.g. on pluggin in.

To bind directories in fstab use:

/from    /to   none bind 0 0

edited Jan 19 '15 at 20:50

Giacomo1968

3,522
25
38

answered Jan 11 '13 at 10:20

Steffen

21
2

debian 6 and it's a `mount --bind dirA directoryB` that i'd like to automate. – ledy Jan 11 '13 at 10:22
@Steffen grub is never involved with fstab at run time. – rackandboneman Jan 11 '13 at 10:38
@ledy: Did you try to bind in fstab with e.g. /opt/var_log /var/log none bind 0 0? Also you could consider to place a symlink. – Steffen Jan 11 '13 at 12:04
You should definitely edit your post since grub has absolutely nothing to do with mounting. – chutz Jan 11 '13 at 13:28

/etc/fstab skip on error

4 Answers4