The vfstab filesystem table

Because the generic commands work on multiple filesystem types--for example, mount can mount a bfs, sfs, vxfs, s5, or ufs filesystem among other types--they require filesystem type-specific information which can be provided explicitly on the command line or implicitly through the filesystem table /etc/vfstab.

What does the vfstab filesystem table do?

The filesystem table is an ASCII file with two functions:

• to describe the filesystems that will be mounted automatically

• to provide missing default values for the mount(1M) command for filesystems it (vfstab) lists

For each filesystem type, vfstab contains a record consisting of the following fields (separated by spaces):

   special fsckdev mountp fstype fsckpass automnt mntopts

``special''

The block special device for local devices or the resource name for remote filesystems (for example, nfs). (For more information on the nfs filesystem type see ``Overview of NFS''.

``fsckdev''

The character special device that corresponds to special. The block special device is used if the character special device is not available. Use a ``-'' where there is no applicable device. (For example, a memfs filesystem would have a ``-'' for this field.)

``mountp''

The default mount directory (mount point).

``fstype''

The type of the filesystem on the special device.

``fsckpass''

The pass number to be used by ff, fsck, and ncheck to decide whether to check the filesystem automatically. Use ``-'' to inhibit automatic checking of the filesystem.

``automnt''

yes or no for whether the filesystem should be automatically mounted by mountall when the system is booted. If this field is yes and the filesystem is not clean, the file system will be checked with the -y option.

``mntopts''

A list of comma-separated options that will be used in mounting the filesystem. Use ``-'' to show no options. See mount(1M) for a list of the available options. Lines beginning with the # character are comments.