Quoting Phillip Susi (ps...@ubuntu.com): [...] > Let me make sure I've got this right: you have two different entries > in /etc/fstab that correspond to the same partition, and one of them > says it is fat?
Yes. Years ago, it contained: # root filesystem /dev/hda1 / ext2 ... 0 1 ... some lines ... # mount point for USB stick as that's where they popped up /dev/sda1 /media/foo ... ,user,noauto, ... 0 0 ... (several of these, b, c) ... and it evolved into: # root filesystem LABEL=abcd01 / ext4 ... 0 1 ... many, many more lines for caddies, cards etc ... /dev/sda1 /media/foo ... ,user,noauto, ... 0 0 ... ... Cruft, I know...and less easily spotted now that one doesn't write /dev/sda1 as the name of the root partition but uses UUID/LABEL. AIUI wheezy and previous versions would not fsck /dev/sda1 a second time because of the "0" in the sixth field, and wouldn't try to mount it again because of "noauto" in the fourth field. And because inserting a USB stick would never provoke the kernel into creating a /dev/sda1 (but would use sdb, sdc, etc) the /dev/sda1 line would languish at the bottom of the file, ever forgotten. > I suppose that explains it then: fsck has to pick one > and goes with the one that says it is fat. > > > > [...] > > > I can venture some guesses. Assuming you were still using sysvinit in > sid, checkroot.sh probably unconditionally checks the root without > caring about the order specified in fstab. fsck also probably just > uses the last entry found when more than one applies rather than > trying to arbitrate using the order entry. But "man fstab" says "The order of records in fstab is important because fsck(8), mount(8), and umount(8) sequentially iterate through fstab doing their thing." While one might argue that the "man fsck" option -A which says "Filesystems with a fs_passno value of 0 are skipped and are not checked at all." could excuse fsck from checking /dev/sda1 if it prioritised fstab in the way you suggested , that contradicts "man fstab" which is squarely aimed at me, the system administrator (whereas man fsck -A is aimed at writers of initalisation scripts). So I still think the root filesystem should get checked under these circumstances. Thanks once again to you both for your help in opening my eyes to the problem. I've revised the way I maintain my fstabs! Cheers, David. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
