What is your /etc/mtab?

Submitted by mcortese on Wed 23 Dec 2009

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a regular file  <-> 58%819 votes
a link to /proc/mounts  <-> 29%411 votes
something else...  <-> 9%140 votes
Total 1407 votes

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#1
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by xrat (62.178.xx.xx) on Sat 26 Dec 2009 at 12:19
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Interesting poll! Mine are regular files but if I want to see what is mounted I rarely use "mount", instead I do a "cat /proc/mounts". -- Andreas

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#2
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (70.105.xx.xx) on Sun 3 Jan 2010 at 05:02
Interesting...
What actually is the "something else"?

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#3
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (203.141.xx.xx) on Fri 22 Jan 2010 at 10:34
Can someone tell me which distors have a link to the /proc/mounts.
and which is more advantageous. Thanks in advance :D.

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#4
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (74.97.xx.xx) on Tue 26 Jan 2010 at 01:32
Could someone list the actual different types of mtab?
Is BSD mtab different than Debian Linux mtab?
How many ways has mtab been done?

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#5
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (74.97.xx.xx) on Tue 26 Jan 2010 at 01:56
http://www.linuxchix.org/content/courses/filesystem/Lesson5.html
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=494001
http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0303.0/0415.html
Some discussions about mtab.
Still not really showing any other kind of mtab: file or link.
Is there anything else out there?

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#6
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (98.111.xx.xx) on Sat 13 Feb 2010 at 18:50
82 votes for something else.
What are those something elses?

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#7
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (24.60.xx.xx) on Thu 18 Feb 2010 at 19:21
My guess is windows users are voting.

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#8
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (98.111.xx.xx) on Fri 19 Feb 2010 at 23:05
Windows has /etc/mtab ?
Never knew that before.

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#9
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by itsec (78.54.xx.xx) on Sun 21 Feb 2010 at 19:14
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Something else is a regular file that is automatically written to after mounting. So the content is dynamic but it is a regular file.

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#10
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (96.253.xx.xx) on Tue 23 Feb 2010 at 22:28
(A regular file which is automatically updated)
Yes I know that from the manpages.
But I consider this poll's three choices to be totally different ways of implementing /etc/mtab.
I have used Slackware,RedHat,SUSE,Turbo,etc. as far back as about 1993.
Also the three BSD's, Net, Free and Open.
Currently I have only been using Debian stable since Potato.
I do not recall any of those distros using anything that fits the something else category.
The question is: What is something else?

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#11
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (96.253.xx.xx) on Wed 3 Mar 2010 at 23:18
O.K. I'm sort of patient.
But I'm still waiting to find out what those "something else" is/are.
Anybody care to describe a something else /etc/mtab?

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#12
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (93.36.xx.xx) on Fri 5 Mar 2010 at 22:33
Something else: maybe a pipe?

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#13
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by Anonymous (77.215.xx.xx) on Tue 9 Mar 2010 at 00:19
My something else: A symlink to a regular file in a writable directory (on tmpfs!), plus a local patch to mount so it doesn't mishandle this case.

Making it a symlink to a different dir allows /etc to be read only when not in the process of reconfiguring the system.

Making it point to a regular file rather than /proc/mounts enables mount features that store information in /etc/mtab not known to the kernel, such as which user mounted a cdrom, the loop mount logic and bind mounts.

Placing the regular file on tmpfs prevents old data from surviving a reboot and allows mtab to work before / or any other persistent file system has been mounted read only later in the boot process.

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#15
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by mcortese (20.142.xx.xx) on Fri 12 Mar 2010 at 11:06
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Making it point to a regular file rather than /proc/mounts enables mount features that store information in /etc/mtab not known to the kernel, such as which user mounted a cdrom, the loop mount logic and bind mounts.
I think what you're saying was true in the past. There's no additional info in /etc/mtab than in /proc/mounts today. See Debian Bug #494001

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#14
Re: What is your /etc/mtab?
Posted by paulgear (202.45.xx.xx) on Tue 9 Mar 2010 at 02:36
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Where's the Cowboy Neal option? Or the "wouldn't have a clue" option?

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