[SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

manuel_yao · 2020-07-17 23:04:20

I just installed Arch on my SSD, everything works fine except this.
I have an extra HDD and I would like to use it to store data. I proceed to open /etc/fstab as root and then add the usual lines to mount it on boot.
However, when saving and closing (:wq on vim), an error pops

 "fstab" E212: Can't open file for writing

I checked with lsattr fstab and this is the output:

 -----a--------e----- fstab

So the file is not immutable.

I checked ls -l fstab and it outputs

 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 492 jul 17 12:38 fstab

So the file is read-write.

I really don't know what to do, I have checked plenty of posts and can't find a solution.
Would appreciate some help. Thanks.

Last edited by manuel_yao (2020-07-18 00:07:13)

Trilby · 2020-07-17 23:09:55

Is the filesystem it's on read only? Please post the full output of `mount` in code tags.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-07-17 23:10:11)

manuel_yao · 2020-07-17 23:29:06

Trilby wrote:

Is the filesystem it's on read only? Please post the full output of `mount` in code tags.

It outputs this

proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
dev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=3737604k,nr_inodes=934401,mode=755)
run on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup2 on /sys/fs/cgroup/unified type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
none on /sys/fs/bpf type bpf (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/rdma type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,rdma)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=29,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=318)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime,pagesize=2M)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing type tracefs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/nvme0n1p6 on /boot type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=755648k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=985)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=985)

Only the tmpfs is RO, should it be RW? If so, how do i fix it? Thanks in advance.
Forgot to mention I'm running dual boot with Windows 10 and I can access the HDD from Windows without any issues.

Last edited by manuel_yao (2020-07-17 23:38:39)

Trilby · 2020-07-17 23:41:57

No the cgroup mount is normally ro - your root partition where fstab is is rw. I'm stumped ... except for one thing that stands out though it seems almost too silly to mention (almost): your initial post only refers to "fstab" which would be a relative path (aka a file in the current directory) - if your working directory was /etc then that'd be fine, but otherwise it wouldn't be.

Scimmia · 2020-07-17 23:46:02

Why in the world does it have the append-only attribute? That's what's causing your problem.

manuel_yao · 2020-07-17 23:49:42

Trilby wrote:

No the cgroup mount is normally ro - your root partition where fstab is is rw. I'm stumped ... except for one thing that stands out though it seems almost too silly to mention (almost): your initial post only refers to "fstab" which would be a relative path (aka a file in the current directory) - if your working directory was /etc then that'd be fine, but otherwise it wouldn't be.

Yes, forgot to mention my working directory was /etc. The command lsattr /etc/fstab and ls -l /etc/fstab output the same as in my initial post.
I ran out of ideas, gnome-disks won't update fstab as well...
And the mount command shows my root partition as RW as you said

manuel_yao · 2020-07-18 00:04:55

Scimmia wrote:

Why in the world does it have the append-only attribute? That's what's causing your problem.

Holy... I changed it the first time by accident because I was trying some things... and forgot to change it back...
Thank you so much!

Trilby · 2020-07-18 00:07:19

Sorry I'm not familiar with lsattr and didn't know what the 'a' was.

Arch Linux

#1 2020-07-17 23:04:20

[SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

#2 2020-07-17 23:09:55

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

#3 2020-07-17 23:29:06

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

#4 2020-07-17 23:41:57

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

#5 2020-07-17 23:46:02

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

#6 2020-07-17 23:49:42

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

#7 2020-07-18 00:04:55

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

#8 2020-07-18 00:07:19

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to edit fstab

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