Note:Whitespaces is used to separate the columns(fields) in each line!

Example content of the file /etc/fstab

Each line has the following structure

<device> <mount_point> <file_system_type> <options> <dump> <pass>

1. <device>:
   • This column specifies the device or file system to be mounted. It can be specified in several ways:
     • Device path (e.g., /dev/sda1, /dev/nvme0n1p1, etc.)
     • UUID or LABEL of the partition (e.g., UUID=1234-5678, LABEL=MyDrive).
     • Network mount (e.g., //server/share for SMB shares).
     • Special files (e.g., tmpfs, proc, etc., for special file systems).
2. <mount_point>:
   • This is the directory where the file system will be mounted. The directory should already exist in the file system. If it does not exist, the mount operation will fail.
   • Common mount points include /, /home, /mnt, /data, etc.
3. <file_system_type>:
   • This column specifies the type of file system. Common types include:
     • ext4, ext3, xfs, btrfs (for local file systems).
     • ntfs, vfat (for Windows partitions).
     • nfs (for Network File System).
     • tmpfs (for temporary file systems).
     • swap (for swap space).
     • auto (for automatic detection by the system).
4. <options>:
   • This column specifies the mount options for the file system. Options control various behaviors when mounting the file system, such as read-write access, file permissions, etc. Some common options are:
     • rw (read-write)
     • ro (read-only)
     • noexec (do not allow execution of binaries)
     • nosuid (do not allow setuid programs)
     • defaults (default options)
     • auto (automatically mount at boot)
     • noauto (do not mount automatically at boot)
     • user (allow non-root users to mount the file system)
     • uid, gid, umask, etc., for permission control
5. <dump>:
   • This column is used by the dump utility to decide whether the file system should be backed up. The value is usually 0 or 1:
     • 0 means the file system will not be dumped.
     • 1 means the file system will be dumped.
   • This option is rarely used these days, and 0 is typically used for most systems
6. <pass>:
   • This column specifies the order in which the file systems should be checked by the fsck utility during boot. The values are
     • 0 means do not check the file system.
     • 1 means check the file system first (typically the root / file system).
     • 2 means check the file system after the root file system, in the order specified.
   • The root file system (/) should typically have a 1, and other file systems usually have a 2.