Empty fstab?

bad sector

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Oct 22, 2020, 11:26:24 PM10/22/20

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I ran into a complex problem (discussed on alt.comp.hardware)
and while TS-ing it came face-to-face with something I had
never seen before, except in suse. It cought my eye because it
was the SECOND time within in a few weeks. I have a Leap-15.2
and a Tumbleweed installation (among others). Just as I was
isolating the problem otherwise unrelated to any OS the Leap-15.2
failed to boot, I mean totally failed. Looking into it from another
booted partition I saw an fstab file that is completely EMPTY. I
have no idea how this could happen but like I said it's happened
TWICE now within a month. Seems like there might be a hole in
some script dealing with fstabs, I certainly have never emptied an
fstab file or saved one that's empty :)

Carlos E.R.

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Oct 23, 2020, 7:48:08 AM10/23/20

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I don't remember having heard of anybody complaining of a similar
problem in the places I read.

The timestamps of the fstab file would aid you to correlate with the
journal or syslog and perhaps find out what caused this.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

bad sector

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Oct 23, 2020, 9:08:03 PM10/23/20

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too late cause the first thing I did of course was write another one

but I do remember at times using Yast>Partitioner just to edit
a Volume-Label to a partition

Carlos E.R.

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Oct 23, 2020, 10:00:09 PM10/23/20

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Pity.

Well, make a backup of the file.

> but I do remember at times using Yast>Partitioner just to edit
> a Volume-Label to a partition

Good.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

bad sector

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Oct 24, 2020, 10:18:28 AM10/24/20

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As in, that's when Yast or partitioner might have
wrote an empty fstab, just a hunch. I certainly haven't
emptied or saved an emty fstab in my life.

Carlos E.R.

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Oct 24, 2020, 1:44:08 PM10/24/20

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It never happened to me, and I use labels on all my partitions.
YaST does other things, like changing your tabs to spaces and other wise
wrecking a beautifully edited fstab, but empty it, never.

So to protect about changes in the formatting of fstab, I make a backup
copy before doing changes:

/etc/fstab
/etc/fstab.20201024

--
Cheers, Carlos.

bad sector

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Oct 24, 2020, 3:07:17 PM10/24/20

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On 2020-10-24 13:42, Carlos E.R. wrote:

> On 24/10/2020 16.18, bad sector wrote:

>> As in, that's when Yast or partitioner might have wrote an empty
>> fstab, just a hunch. I certainly haven't
>>
>> emptied or saved an emty fstab in my life.
>
> It never happened to me, and I use labels on all my partitions. YaST
> does other things, like changing your tabs to spaces and other wise
> wrecking a beautifully edited fstab, but empty it, never.

How about if a label is the ONLY thing you change?
I mean something did it TWICE and it wasn't me

> So to protect about changes in the formatting of fstab, I make a
> backup copy before doing changes:
>
> /etc/fstab
>
> /etc/fstab.20201024

lucky you, I have to make'em after the chages :)

Carlos E.R.

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Oct 24, 2020, 3:20:10 PM10/24/20

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On 24/10/2020 21.07, bad sector wrote:
> On 2020-10-24 13:42, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>> On 24/10/2020 16.18, bad sector wrote:
>
>>> As in, that's when Yast or partitioner might have wrote an empty
>>> fstab, just a hunch. I certainly haven't
>>>
>>> emptied or saved an emty fstab in my life.
>>
>> It never happened to me, and I use labels on all my partitions. YaST
>> does other things, like changing your tabs to spaces and other wise
>> wrecking a beautifully edited fstab, but empty it, never.
>
> How about if a label is the ONLY thing you change?

Sure, no problem.
But nowdays I use gparted because it does the job faster, and doesn't
edit fstab.

> I mean something did it TWICE and it wasn't me
>
>> So to protect about changes in the formatting of fstab, I make a
>> backup copy before doing changes:
>>
>> /etc/fstab
>>
>> /etc/fstab.20201024
>
> lucky you, I have to make'em after the chages :)

I don't see why.
Make a copy, start yast, check.

--
Cheers, Carlos.