Re: /etc/fstab.d yes or not

[Kay Sievers]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 15:20, Masatake YAMATO <yamato@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> ÂI'd like to add support for /etc/fstab.d to libmount. The library is
>> Âcurrently used by mount, umount and mount.nfs. The goal is to use it
>> Âon more places.
>>
>> ÂThe /etc/fstab.d directory has been requested by people who maintains
>> Âlarge number of mountpoints etc.
>>
>> ÂThe directory is not replacement for /etc/fstab, it's additional place
>> Âwhere you can describe your filesystems.
>>
>> ÂThe disadvantage is that the stuff in the directory will be invisible
>> Âfor some tools (udisks, systemd, ...), so I have very vocal
>> Âdisagreement from some people who don't want to see /etc/fstab.d at all.
>
> I'm working on systemd to support /etc/fstab.d.

And we don't want to support that in systemd.

It's an old glibc API, and /etc/fstab is ABI, not a service config
file, which now can read more than one file. It's a very different
problem. It an ABI change, not a config extension.

Tools rightfully expect that they find all system mounts in that file,
and not in some new split-up directory. In some cases, fstab is used
to 'check if the device is not a system volume', and that will just
break now,

The gain of features from fstab.d/ vs. the amount of breakage it
causes is not worth the trouble.

And yes, there are systemd units, but we don't recommend anybody
working with a general purpose system to mount system volumes with
them. They are primarily used for virtual filessytems, which do not
belong in fstab. In special purpose setups, like embedded, which do
not care about POSIX-like APIs, the systemd units can replace fstab,
but it's an entirely different story than breaking fstab expectations.

Kay
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