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Concepts·LPIC-1

Why fstab uses UUIDs, and checking a filesystem

A /dev/sd? name is assigned in the order the kernel finds the disks, which changes when hardware is added. This guide shows the persistent identifiers that do not move, and then runs fsck - which has one rule that matters more than every flag it takes.

101: Devices and Filesystems Guide 12 of 33 Beginner

One Debian-family host with four spare 5 GB disks. Everything here happens on /dev/sda, which on this machine is a SPARE - the system disk is /dev/sde.
Server NameIP AddressOSRolesCPURAMHDD
LPIC1-A01192.168.0.76Ubuntu 26.04 LTSDebian-family host - dpkg and apt, which objective 102.4 names2 Core4 GB50 GB

This guide includes

Use this when adding a disk, cloning a VM, moving storage, or writing fstab entries that must survive reboot. This matters because a device name is assigned in the order the kernel finds the hardware and can change between boots, while a filesystem UUID stays attached to the filesystem.

Before you start

  1. The identifiers that do not move

  2. Checking a filesystem

Official sources