Strange /etc/mtab

vzxwco · 2012-05-31 10:49:03

Hey guys,

I just installed Arch on a server machine with a LSI hardware RAID 5.

During the installation, I created (and cfdisk properly reports) three partitions:

sda1 (/)
sda2 (/boot)
sda5 (swap)

Everything seems to be working fine, except that the df command is showing strange output:

Filesystem   1K-blocks   Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs        131G        2.8G   121G     3%   /tmp
/dev/sda2    955M         50M   860M     6%   /boot

Note that at this point, /dev/sda2 isn't actually mounted... However, /dev/sda1 (my root partition) is missing, although it's definitely mounted. The readings for tmpfs would be correct if they were labeled "/dev/sda1".

Likewise, the mount command (and /etc/mtab) displays:

tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sda2 on /boot type ext4 (rw)

Furthermore, I have a device sda3 in /dev/ which cfdisk doesn't know about.

In short:

- /dev/sda1 doesn't show up anywhere
- /dev/sda2 shows up without being mounted
- /dev/sda3 exists but doesn't show up in cfdisk (and has never been created)
- tmpfs is showing stats for /dev/sda1

Any ideas on how to solve this?

perbh · 2012-05-31 12:43:00

You probably want 'df -a' ...

vzxwco · 2012-06-01 13:18:23

perbh wrote:

You probably want 'df -a' ...

Nope. 'df -a' has exactly the same output as 'df'.

ataraxia · 2012-06-01 20:05:54

Is your /etc/mtab a symlink to /proc/self/mounts ? It should be.

rossmcd · 2012-06-02 04:18:23

Yeah. It should be a symlink to /proc/self/mounts
Execute this in a terminal (use sudo or the root account):

# rm -rfv /etc/mtab && ln -s /proc/self/mounts /etc/mtab

And to view mounts, use the mount command with no options.

# mount

debdj · 2012-06-02 07:14:59

sda1 (/)
sda2 (/boot)
sda5 (swap)

It might be my misunderstanding, but your partition table shows that, you have a primary partition at sda1, an extended partition on sda2 and a logical one on sda5. Now, extended partitions are not really created to hold user data. It rather contains some data structures that describes the start and end of the logical volumes on the disk. So its a bit confusing about your setup. (I'm guessing that you didn't explicitly use sda5 for swap.) Correct me if am wrong.

And what do you mean by this>

- /dev/sda3 exists but doesn't show up in cfdisk (and has never been created)

Last edited by debdj (2012-06-02 07:26:38)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-05-31 10:49:03

Strange /etc/mtab

#2 2012-05-31 12:43:00

Re: Strange /etc/mtab

#3 2012-06-01 13:18:23

Re: Strange /etc/mtab

#4 2012-06-01 20:05:54

Re: Strange /etc/mtab

#5 2012-06-02 04:18:23

Re: Strange /etc/mtab

#6 2012-06-02 07:14:59

Re: Strange /etc/mtab

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