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Howto label Linux partition

In linux, to label a partition, there are 3 tools that can be used. The tools are e2label, tune2fs and mke2fs.

To use e2label to label the second partition of the first hardisk with label DATA:
# e2label /dev/sda2 DATA

To use tune2fs to do the similar job as above:
# tune2fs -L DATA /dev/sda2

The third tool, mke2fs is actually a tool to build ext2/ext3 filesystem. So, if you want to build the partition's filesystem as ext2/ext3 and at the same time label it, this command can be used. Be careful though, because it will delete all existing data on that particular partition
# mke2fs -L DATA /dev/sda2

To view the label that you have set, there are 3 ways which are using e2label, blkid and viewing /dev/disk/by-label.

To check using e2label:
# e2label /dev/sda2
DATA

blkid tool is even more useful, because it can list out all the partitions that you have in the machine together with their labels,uuid and filesystem type:
# blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="/" UUID="1CC08F13C08EF276" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/sda2: LABEL="DATA" UUID="2063f830-fe5d-438e-b727-571b313cb89e" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/sda3: TYPE="swap" LABEL="SWAP" UUID="3e266b53-42e0-4f09-8fe3-d1cf79cb5d37" 

To view the /dev/disk/by-label
# ls -l /dev/disk/by-label
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-07-24 05:38 / -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-07-24 05:38 DATA -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-07-24 05:38 SWAP -> ../../sda3

Note that the label will stay with the partition although the disk is moved to another computer.

To use it in /etc/fstab:
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=DATA /DATA ext3 defaults 1 2
LABEL=SWAP swap swap defaults 0 0


sourcehttp://linuxwave.blogspot.com/2009/07/labeling-linux-partition.html


2 comments:

Matt said...

Excellent post! I didn't know about blkid, but I've used the rest to great success.

They're especially useful when you use an array of external drives, which are easy to get confused, or when you've got a SAN, and you can't always be guaranteed that the same slice will be presented as the same device each time.

Anonymous said...

Nice Post !! helped me a lot..

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