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I've got a problem writing changes in /etc/fstab files which make system read-only.

I have two drives on my laptop - SSD and HDD. I read a lot opinions about SSD optimization, someone says that nowadays there is not necessary to worry about, but I faced a problem trying to optimize SSD usage. Adding any optimizing options to partitions in fstab makes / read only after system restart.

Here is my fstab file:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=b6ebbe28-8654-4919-8094-5eee18954247 /               ext4    discard, noatime, errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=A5F0-7D4E  /boot/efi       vfat    umask=0077      0       1
# /home was on /dev/sda4 during installation
UUID=1e4e6052-c8ba-4548-8ffd-457a4bc460bf /home           ext4    discard, noatime, defaults 0 2
# /var was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=d1fa1a62-eca1-4e13-8bf6-f30300a01cab /var            ext4    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation
UUID=69c38a83-596d-4ad1-ab87-599445c4e910 none            swap    sw              0       0

# moving temporary files from SSD to RAM
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
#tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
#tmpfs /var/lock tmpfs defaults 0 0
#tmpfs /var/spool/postfix tmpfs defaults 0 0

UUID="ec529d46-81de-43e5-ad88-d50818f93421" /sghdd ext4 defaults 0 2

# mount MEDIA partition as sghdd folder
UUID="ec529d46-81de-43e5-ad88-d50818f93421" /sghdd ext4 defaults 0 2

# moving SSD/home folders to MEDIA
/sghdd/Downloads /home/ornichola/Downloads none bind 0 0
/sghdd/Public /home/ornichola/Public none bind 0 0
/sghdd/Videos /home/ornichola/Videos none bind 0 0
/sghdd/Pictures /home/ornichola/Pictures none bind 0 0
/sghdd/Music /home/ornichola/Music none bind 0 0

With adding any option (discard, noatime, relatime) to /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda4 problem occurs after system restart. All attempts to use aptitude are blocked according to read-only filesystem.

To avoid it I should boot from liveCD, mount my / partition and remove added options from fstab. After that I execute in liveCD system:

sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/sda2 /

reboot to installed system, execute:

sudo fsck -n -f  

and only after it I can use aptitude again.

The main purpose of changing fstab is to add discard, relatime, nodiratime (or noatime) options to SSD partions. Why system is going to read-only?

Output of blkid:

ornichola@silver:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="EFIBOOT" UUID="A5F0-7D4E" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System Partition" PARTUUID="9a3525d1-9e84-4a06-84d2-2b96818ac1b8"
/dev/sda2: UUID="b6ebbe28-8654-4919-8094-5eee18954247" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="a5cd0868-f118-40a5-9ffd-09282504722d"
/dev/sda3: UUID="69c38a83-596d-4ad1-ab87-599445c4e910" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="9199a9cb-9656-489f-83ef-4fe2800e6706"
/dev/sda4: UUID="1e4e6052-c8ba-4548-8ffd-457a4bc460bf" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="4bf6d060-a7bf-491d-ae53-da80b13c838d"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="d1fa1a62-eca1-4e13-8bf6-f30300a01cab" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="6c06b7b5-67dd-4b39-9f63-58c3876b9cfb"
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="MEDIA" UUID="ec529d46-81de-43e5-ad88-d50818f93421" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="869b4d14-7a3b-4eb3-b784-e6fbe3db5514"
ornichola@silver:~$ 

and ouput of fsck while system is read-only and options added to fstab:

ornichola@silver:~$ sudo fsck -n -f
fsck from util-linux 2.27.1
fsck: /etc/fstab: parse error at line 9 -- ignore
fsck: /etc/fstab: parse error at line 13 -- ignore
fsck.fat 3.0.28 (2015-05-16)
0x41: Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt.
 Automatically removing dirty bit.
Leaving filesystem unchanged.
/dev/sda1: 9 files, 870/130812 clusters
e2fsck 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Warning!  /dev/sdb1 is mounted.
Warning: skipping journal recovery because doing a read-only filesystem check.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
Free blocks count wrong (4853291, counted=4853223).
Fix? no

Free inodes count wrong (1301362, counted=1301355).
Fix? no

/dev/sdb1: 9358/1310720 files (0.4% non-contiguous), 389589/5242880 blocks
e2fsck 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Warning!  /dev/sdb2 is mounted.
Warning: skipping journal recovery because doing a read-only filesystem check.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
MEDIA: 16/59744256 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 3800856/238947328 blocks
e2fsck 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Warning!  /dev/sdb2 is mounted.
Warning: skipping journal recovery because doing a read-only filesystem check.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
MEDIA: 16/59744256 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 3800856/238947328 blocks
ornichola@silver:~$ 
2
  • (...) nowadays there is not necessary to worry about Indeed. So, save yourself the trouble and do not change it.
    – user692175
    Aug 13, 2017 at 19:24
  • discard, noatime, errors=remount-ro MUST BE discard,noatime,errors=remount-ro. No spaces. The list of mount options (see man fstab) is a comma-separated list that ends at the first blank.
    – waltinator
    Aug 13, 2017 at 20:12

1 Answer 1

1

Edit your /etc/fstab:

In terminal...

gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

Change this:

# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=b6ebbe28-8654-4919-8094-5eee18954247 /               ext4    discard, noatime, errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /home was on /dev/sda4 during installation
UUID=1e4e6052-c8ba-4548-8ffd-457a4bc460bf /home           ext4    discard, noatime, defaults 0 2

To this:

# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=b6ebbe28-8654-4919-8094-5eee18954247 /               ext4    discard,noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /home was on /dev/sda4 during installation
UUID=1e4e6052-c8ba-4548-8ffd-457a4bc460bf /home           ext4    discard,noatime,defaults 0 2

And, to properly fsck your system and repair errors...

To check the file system on your Ubuntu partition...

  • boot to the GRUB menu
  • choose Advanced Options
  • choose Recovery mode
  • choose Root access
  • at the # prompt, type sudo fsck -f / # check /
  • at the # prompt, type sudo fsck -f /dev/sda4 # check /home
  • at the # prompt, type sudo fsck -f /dev/sdb1 # check /var
  • repeat the fsck command if there were errors
  • type reboot
2
  • @ornichola Thanks for the update! Did the fsck work ok for you?
    – heynnema
    Aug 13, 2017 at 20:53
  • Yes, I executed it, no errors were found.
    – ornichola
    Aug 13, 2017 at 20:57

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