Automount Additional Drives Through fstab at Boot

This tutorial describes the basics of utilizing the fstab file located in /etc/ in order to mount static drives during boot. It briefly explains how to find a partition or drive’s UUID, what some options do, and further reading should the information provided be insufficient.

Prerequisites

• Root or sudo access

Adding Entries to /etc/fstab

NTFS on Linux

The NTFS filesystem can be unstable under Linux, whether using the ntfs3 or ntfs-3g driver. Use it at your own risk. For better stability and performance, consider Linux native filesystems like ext4, xfs, or btrfs.

1. List the UUIDs of your partitions

Open a terminal and run the following command

lsblk -f

Example output

# NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
# zram0                                                                              [SWAP]
# nvme0n1
# ├─nvme0n1p1 vfat   FAT32       E04D-9F05
# ├─nvme0n1p2
# ├─nvme0n1p3 ntfs               08A24E90A24E81E4                      715.4G    50%
# ├─nvme0n1p4 vfat   FAT32       E09C-D4DA                             628.1M    39% /boot
# ├─nvme0n1p5 ext4   1.0         187a9f06-9411-48d9-b941-f03c2e605812  203.6G    47% /
# └─nvme0n1p6 ntfs

In our example, we know that we want to mount a Windows partition, which is ntfs. We also know that roughly half its space is available. Therefore, we can determine that the partition we want to mount is nvme0n1p3 and its UUID to be 08A24E90A24E81E4, with a file system of ntfs in this example.

2. Identifying your partition

Often lsblk -f will provide all the information you need to mount your disk through /etc/fstab at this point. If you’re still unsure which is the correct partition, you can run the following command:

sudo fdisk -l

Example output

# Device              Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
# /dev/nvme0n1p1       2048     206847     204800  100M EFI System
# /dev/nvme0n1p2     206848     239615      32768   16M Microsoft reserved
# /dev/nvme0n1p3     239616 2997384182 2997144567  1.4T Microsoft basic data
# /dev/nvme0n1p4 2997385216 2999482367    2097152    1G EFI System
# /dev/nvme0n1p5 2999482368 3905454079  905971712  432G Linux root (x86-64)
# /dev/nvme0n1p6 3905454080 3907026943    1572864  768M Windows recovery environment

We already know our UUID in this example. However, fdisk -l can make it a bit more clear to us by showing the exact size of the partition (1.4T) as well as its type (Microsoft basic data).

That should make it abundantly clear to us that the partition we want is nvme0n1p3 with a UUID of 08A24E90A24E81E4 as described earlier. We knew earlier, but now we just know it for sure.

Once you are confident you’ve found the correct partition, copy the UUID. Copying from the terminal emulator is typically done with ctrl+shift+C.

3. Adding an Entry to /etc/fstab

Now that we’ve obtained the UUID of our partition, it’s time to open up the fstab file.

Feel free to use your text editor of choice. In this example, we will use nano. In order to edit the fstab file, it must be opened as root:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Using the arrow keys, navigate to the bottom of the fstab file, then create our new entry on an empty new line:

UUID=08A24E90A24E81E4 /media/windows ntfs3 defaults,nofail,uid=1000,gid=1000,rw,user,exec,umask=000 0 0

The break down of this entry is as follows:

• UUID=08A24E90A24E81E4 is the file system we want to mount, identified by its UUID. There are other methods to identify your filesystem, though UUID tends to be safest. Additional methods listed here.

• /media/windows is the mount point of our drive. The Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard says that /media/ is the proper location for removable drives to be mounted. windows indicates the directory we wish to mount our drive to. Each drive we want to mount will need its own directory.

• ntfs3 is the filesystem type to be used. We are explicitly using the ntfs3 kernel driver in our example. Other examples would be ext4, xfs or similar. This explicit filesystem type declaration can be replaced with auto to allow the mount command to make its best guess.

• defaults,nofail,uid=1000,gid=1000,rw,user,exec,umask=000: These are mount options:

  • defaults: a standard set of options including rw, suid, dev, exec, auto, nouser, and async.

  • nofail: allows the boot process to continue even if this mount fails.

  • uid=1000 and gid=1000: sets the user and group ownership of the mounted files to the user and group with ID 1000.

  • rw: mounts the filesystem as read-write.

  • user: allows a non-root user to mount the filesystem.

  • exec: allows execution of binaries on the mounted filesystem.

  • umask=000: sets the file permission mask to allow read, write, and execute permissions for everyone.

  • the first 0 dump is typically deprecated in modern systems. Leaving this at 0 won’t hurt anything. Feel free to read more about it here.

  • the second 0 sets the order for file system checks at boot time. For a root partition, this should be 1 unless your root file system is btrfs, which should otherwise be set to 0. All other file systems in your fstab should be either 0 (disabled) or 2. More information here.

For a more in depth look of each option, visit these two fstab man page and mount man page

More info

As an aside, all options after the filesystem type declaration are optional if you do not change them from the default.

Thus

UUID=<partition UUID> /media/foo somefs

and

UUID=<partition UUID> /media/foo somefs defaults 0 0

are equivalent. somefs followed by nothing is implicitly somefs defaults 0 0

4. Finishing Up

If you wish to mount the drive you created an entry for now, you need to run the following:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

and then:

sudo mount -a

Your drive should now appear under /media/windows and will appear there each time you reboot.

ls /media/windows
# '$Recycle.Bin'             Linux                  SteamLibrary
# AMD                       Modding                swapfile.sys
# Apps                      pagefile.sys          'System Volume Information'
# bootTel.dat               PerfLogs               Users
# Development               ProgramData            WiiU
# 'Documents and Settings'  'Program Files'         Windows
# DumpStack.log.tmp        'Program Files (x86)'   XboxGames
# FanControl                Recovery               xiv_modding
# Games                     RetroArch-Win64
# Intel                    'Ship of Harkinian'

If you wish to create a link to your newly mounted drive in your home directory, you can run the following:

ln -s /media/windows ~/Windows

To show it worked:

ls ~/Windows
# '$Recycle.Bin'             Linux                  SteamLibrary
# AMD                       Modding                swapfile.sys
# Apps                      pagefile.sys          'System Volume Information'
# bootTel.dat               PerfLogs               Users
# Development               ProgramData            WiiU
#'Documents and Settings'  'Program Files'         Windows
# DumpStack.log.tmp        'Program Files (x86)'   XboxGames
# FanControl                Recovery               xiv_modding
# Games                     RetroArch-Win64
# Intel                    'Ship of Harkinian'

tl;dr

• Find the UUID of your partition

lsblk -f

• Open /etc/fstab

sudo nano /etc/fstab

• Create an entry in the bottom of the file

UUID=<partition UUID> /media/foo somefs defaults 0 0

Replacing <partition UUID>, foo, and somefs with your UUID, directory, and filesystem. eg., ext4, as well as setting any other options you may want after defaults, such as _netdev for a NAS, or nofail for any non-critical drive.

• Reload your daemon

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

• Mount your drive

sudo mount -a

This drive is now mounted, and will now be mounted on boot moving forward as well.

Additional reading

• Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
• FHS on /media/
• Manual for dump
• Manual for fsck
• Man page for fstab
• Arch Linux Wiki entry for fstab