Monday, September 16, 2024

Using UUID to Deal With Disks

HomeNetworks
Juliet Kemp
By Juliet Kemp

Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

Juliet Kemp

UUID (Universal Unique Identifier) notation is another way provided by
Linux to access your disks. Unlike the standard /dev/hda1,
/dev/sda2 notation, it is linked specifically to a particular piece
of hardware (whereas /dev/ notation can shift between disks depending
on how they’re plugged in). This means you don’t have the risk of a
system reconfiguration causing disks to be renamed, and thus causing
knock-on breakage of things that reference that disk.

OK, so, first, how do you find out the UUID of your disk? The command
blkid can be used — here’s its output for one of my disks:

# blkid /dev/hda1
/dev/hda1: UUID="0ef96300-36c0-4575-8a1d-2d36ff4cd585" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

Alternatively, you can look at the /dev/disk/by_uuid/ directory to
see which UUID is associated with which disk. (Use df to find out
what device names you currently have mounted.)

You can also do this the other way around, starting from the UUID:
findfs UUID=uuid will tell you which disk is associated with that
UUID.

Once you have the UUID of a device, you can use it with mount by
using the -U switch:

mount -U 0ef96300-36c0-4575-8a1d-2d36ff4cd585 /mnt/disk1

or, you can use it in your /etc/fstab by putting UUID=uuid at
the start of the relevant line, instead of /dev/hdaX.

To assign a UUID to a disk, use tunefs. You can generate your own
UUID with the command uuidgen. Then type:

tune2fs -U uuid /dev/sda2

This might come in handy if, say, you’ve cloned your disk (e.g., by using
dd) and must be able to mount both the original and the clone.
Assign it a new UUID and you’re away!

This article was first published on ServerWatch.com.

Previous article
Cloud Computing: The Ever Expanding Buzzword
Next article
Optimal Database Setup Hardware Guide

Subscribe to Data Insider

Learn the latest news and best practices about data science, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, data security, and more.

Similar articles

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to Data Insider for top news, trends & analysis

Latest Articles

Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation’s focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.

Advertisers

Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.

Advertise with Us

Menu

Our Brands

Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2023 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.