Re: auto-mounting disks that might not be present (e.g. usb drives)

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:31:10 -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

> On Thursday 04 February 2010 09:04:08 Camaleón wrote:

>> Yes, but the mount point of the OP is not critical for his system, that
>> was what I wanted to say. And the kernel must be aware of that device
>> is trivial and can be skipped without any drawbacks.
> 
> Why must the kernel be aware of that?  That's a human decision, not a
> technical one.

Because (correct me if I am wrong) it is defined by the docs what are the 
minimal requirements for a linux system to boot. It's a hierarquical 
system, and so are services: there are some services you can bypass 
without having penalties at startup (boot process can be delayed, but not 
stopped), but there are other critical services that unless started, the 
system will refuse to boot.

I think that makes sense and the same remains for fstab, at least that is 
my point.
 
> I can certainly see reasons that a device attached via USB might be
> considered to the user to be critical.

Yes, so do I. If "/boot" partition is located there, for instance :-). 
But a standard linux system does not search for "/my_mount_point/
my_device" unless it is explicitly specified by the user.

And you know, you cannot trust what users do so much :-P

> In any case, /etc/fstab is for *static* file systems.  It is *not* for
> file systems that may or may not be there when the system is booting (or
> otherwise in operation).

Yes, I know, and I think so. 

But the OP found a problem with his setup and he's looking for a solution.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón