/etc/fstab has a problem

master · 01-19-2005, 08:12 AM

Hello when i boot up red hat i can see this message"warning bad format on line 9 of /etc/fstab" this is my /etc/fstab
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto users,noauto 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto users,noauto 0 0
can any body help me with this issue please

TomF · 01-19-2005, 09:07 AM

You could try deleting line 9 and entering it again with a blank line following it.

jonr · 01-19-2005, 09:29 AM

I may be having a really bad day, but I counted the lines you quoted three times and only
came up with eight lines every time.

Is there in fact a ninth line in /etc/fstab?

master · 01-19-2005, 09:32 AM

yes that is my point allso i only have 8 there is no line 9

rsmccain · 01-19-2005, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jonr
I may be having a really bad day, but I counted the lines you quoted three times and only
came up with eight lines every time.

Is there in fact a ninth line in /etc/fstab?

ditto.

master · 01-19-2005, 09:33 AM

so that goes to show the format must be really bad eh

jonr · 01-19-2005, 09:38 AM

There COULD be an invisible character in the invisible line 9.

If it was the absence of a CR on line eight, I'm sure it would have said format error on line EIGHT.

So...

Have you tried just positioning the cursor at the end of line eight, inserting a CR, and then holding down the
delete key for a while? It may sound silly, but it might also work.

rsmccain · 01-19-2005, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by master
yes that is my point allso i only have 8 there is no line 9

It could be you have hidden windows characters in your file. Try running your fstab file through the dos2unix program.

ie:

$dos2unix /etc/fstab

--

rn

jonr · 01-19-2005, 09:59 AM

Another thing you could do is to open up /etc/fstab in a word processor such as OpenOffice.org, and select "view hidden characters" and see what it looks like.