<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" version="5.0" xml:id="ch-file-systems"> <title>File Systems</title> <para> You can define file systems using the <option>fileSystems</option> configuration option. For instance, the following definition causes NixOS to mount the Ext4 file system on device <filename>/dev/disk/by-label/data</filename> onto the mount point <filename>/data</filename>: <programlisting> <xref linkend="opt-fileSystems"/>."/data" = { device = "/dev/disk/by-label/data"; fsType = "ext4"; }; </programlisting> Mount points are created automatically if they don’t already exist. For <option><link linkend="opt-fileSystems._name__.device">device</link></option>, it’s best to use the topology-independent device aliases in <filename>/dev/disk/by-label</filename> and <filename>/dev/disk/by-uuid</filename>, as these don’t change if the topology changes (e.g. if a disk is moved to another IDE controller). </para> <para> You can usually omit the file system type (<option><link linkend="opt-fileSystems._name__.fsType">fsType</link></option>), since <command>mount</command> can usually detect the type and load the necessary kernel module automatically. However, if the file system is needed at early boot (in the initial ramdisk) and is not <literal>ext2</literal>, <literal>ext3</literal> or <literal>ext4</literal>, then it’s best to specify <option>fsType</option> to ensure that the kernel module is available. </para> <note> <para> System startup will fail if any of the filesystems fails to mount, dropping you to the emergency shell. You can make a mount asynchronous and non-critical by adding <literal><link linkend="opt-fileSystems._name__.options">options</link> = [ "nofail" ];</literal>. </para> </note> <xi:include href="luks-file-systems.xml" /> </chapter>