On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Theo de Raadt <[email protected]> wrote: >> I remember some early 5.1 snapshot which installed and successfully run >> without /etc/fstab >> however, 5.1-RELEASE came with /etc/fstab >> >> it would be nice to move system from one server to another without having >> to bother about /etc/fstab (I moved several of them due to buggy hardware). >> is it possible to run without /etc/fstab ? is it supported configuration ? > > Sorry, but you are wrong. > > A system must have a /etc/fstab file, and it is created by the installer.
To "move" or replicate a system to other hardware, the /etc/fstab aneeds to be reviewed and edited for any partition layout, or it will not be able to find the partitions for "/" or other partitions you happen to need. Some folks get cute and do NFS or similar targets with automounting of varous sorts, so those aren't in fstab on such systems. I've never seen anyone using that on OpenBSD. I've done this sort of replicate-and-edit-config-files stunt for roughly 20,000 hosts in my careerm, espcially 15,000 Linux hosts in one month, so I know the approach can be much faster than installing from normal installation media. /etc/fstab can also be deleted after a system is up and running with all the UNIX or UNIX like operating systems, I've seen people accidentally do that. But woe betide them when they try to reboot!
