Package: mount Version: 2.29.2-1+deb9u1 Severity: normal Dear Maintainer,
I have modified the file at `/etc/fstab` to add instructions to `mount` for mounting a "USB thumb drive" (LABEL=SANDISK16GB); please see the file contents below. Note the use of the `nofail` option. When I omit this option, and that USB thumb drive is not plugged in, my system will no longer complete the boot process. This behavior is contrary to the documentation in `man mount`, and `man fstab`. I am unable to tell if this is an error in the documentation, or in the code, but judging from various postings online (stackexchange sites, etc), this error may not be consistent across all platforms and versions. The documentation describes the `nofail` option as follows: "Do not report errors for this device if it does not exist." "Do not report errors" is quite a different thing than "Halt the boot process". Furthermore, the consequences can be severe for a certain class of users if this option is not specified, and a reboot is attempted without the device. $ cat /etc/fstab proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 PARTUUID=bb8517b1-01 /boot vfat defaults 0 2 PARTUUID=bb8517b1-02 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1 # a swapfile is not a swap partition, no line here # use dphys-swapfile swap[on|off] for that LABEL=SANDISK16GB /home/pi/mntThumbDrv exfat rw,user,nofail 0 0 # LABEL=SANDISK16GB /home/pi/mntThumbDrv exfat rw,user 0 0 -- System Information: Distributor ID: Raspbian Description: Raspbian GNU/Linux 9.4 (stretch) Release: 9.4 Codename: stretch Architecture: armv7l Kernel: Linux 4.14.52-v7+ (SMP w/4 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) Versions of packages mount depends on: ii libblkid1 2.29.2-1+deb9u1 ii libc6 2.24-11+deb9u3 ii libmount1 2.29.2-1+deb9u1 ii libselinux1 2.6-3 ii libsmartcols1 2.29.2-1+deb9u1 ii libudev1 232-25+deb9u4 mount recommends no packages. Versions of packages mount suggests: ii nfs-common 1:1.3.4-2.1 -- no debconf information