Managing filesystems on a floppy

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Notes:

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1. mount
   - used to insert a filesystem on a device such as a hard drive, floppy or cd-rom into the main filesystem tree.
   - can normally only be used by the superuser
   - the most common format of mount is: mount -t fstype device directory
   - /etc/fstab is the configuration file for the mount command
   - /etc/mtab normally contains a list of the filesystems that are currently mounted
   - eg: mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /floppy
   - eg: mount -t ext2 /dev/ram2 /mnt
    

2. umount - unmount; can unmount either the directory or the device
   - eg:  umount /floppy OR umount /dev/fd0
    

3. mkfs - creates a logical filesystem on a device
   - eg:  mkfs -t ext2 /dev/fd0
    
4. fsck - check a filesystem (and optionally repair it)
    - eg:  fsck -t ext2 /dev/fd0
    
5. sync - write any data in the filesystem cache out to disk
    

6. du - display the amount of disk space used:
   - eg:  du /etc
    

7. df - show the amount of free space on filesystems that are mounted

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Exercises:

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1. What entries exist in /etc/fstab for mounting floppies?
    
2. What is the difference between /etc/fstab and /etc/mtab?
    
3. What is displayed by the mount command without any parameters or options?
    
4. Create an ext2 filesystem on a 3.5" floppy. ( mkfs -t ext2 /dev/fd0 )
    
5. Try to mount this floppy using the command: mount /floppy
   Why doesn't this work?
    
6. How do you check to see if the floppy is mounted?
    
7. Use man to determine the purpose of the du command. Use du to report on the space used by the directory /usr .
    
8. Use du to report on the space used on the floppy formatted in question 4.
    
9. Use man to find out the purpose of the df command. Use df to report available space on the floppy in 1K blocks. ____________
    
10. It is possible for a filesystem to run out of inodes even though there is still storage space available. What option of the df command will display information about free inodes. How many free inodes are available in /usr?
     
11. What command flushes the contents of the disk cache out to the disk?
     
12. Unmount the floppy and check the integrity of the filesystem. What command do you use?
     
13. Try the following:
    • mount the floppy formatted in question 4
    • eject the floppy (do NOT unmount it first)
    • now unmount the floppy
    • put the diskette back in the drive and mount it again
    • what error messages do you get?
    • unmount the floppy
    • now use fsck to check the file system on /dev/fd0
    • mount the floppy again
    • do you still get error messages?

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