fstab-sync wipes out /etc/fstab

[akonstam at trinity.edu]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2005 at 01:41:50AM -0400, Bill Perkins wrote:
> Thomas Taylor wrote:
> >On Friday 14 October 2005 22:11, Dan wrote:
> >
> >>On Sat, October 15, 2005 12:37 pm, Bill Perkins wrote:
> >>
> >>>In the mean time, you could try booting into rescue mode (saw something
> >>>about that a few days ago on this list) using either the ISO image from
> >>>the Fedora website, or you can get there with the first disk of the
> >>>distro's set. If you can get that far, write down the /etc/fstab file
> >>>that is (hopefully) generated when booting into rescue mode (I haven't
> >>>tried this as yet, although I may give it a shot just to see what we wind
> >>>up with). If that doesn't work, I'd try running fdisk -l to get a list of
> >>>the disks and partitions, and work from memory and poking around (mount
> >>>the partitions one at a time and examine them) to build a new fstab.
> >>>FWIW, here is what mine looks like:
> >>
> >>Hey Bill,
> >>
> >>I did boot into rescue mode again and managed to reconstruct my
> >>/etc/fstab. After a few reboot attempts i think i have managed to rebuild
> >>fstab to its former glory.
> >>
> >>Posting this from the formerly unbootable machine.
> >>
> >>BTW i do actually take regular backups of /etc, just not this machine. I
> >>guess that will change now :)
> >>
> >>I wonder if it would be feasable to have fstab-sync take a backup of
> >>/etc/fstab, or perform some sanity tests (ie there is a /, /proc, /sys
> >>etc) before making changes? Any thoughts/comments?
> >>
> >>Cheers,
> >>
> >>Dan
> >
> >
> >Hi Dan:
> >
> >Intrigueing idea, but not directly applicable.  "fstab-sync" is an elf 
> >binary, not a script so not easy to change.
> >
> >But you COULD write a script to copy or rename the /etc/fstab file and 
> >then call the "/usr/sbin/fstab-sync" program.  
> >
> >Tom
> >
> 
> That's the way I'd go as well, unless you want to have at the source for 
> fstab-sync. But, from what I've seen, the *nix way of doing things is 
> keeping the tools simple and gluing them together with scripts ;-)
> 
I am not sure what the original problem was but maybe the following
two things are relevant:
1. fstab-sync only affect lines in the fstab that have "managed" in the
options field.
2. fstab-sync has configuration files that control what it does to
lines it manages.
-- 

=======================================================================
Immature artists imitate, mature artists steal.
		-- Lionel Trilling
-------------------------------------------
Aaron Konstam
Computer Science
Trinity University
telephone: (210)-999-7484