Celeb Glow
updates | March 29, 2026

Default fstab mount options

On a clean Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) installation, I used just a single partition for everything. The line that got added in the fstab file is this

UUID=xxx / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1

Shouldn't there be a 'defaults' in there?

I've bumped into this while trying to move the home folder to a different partition. I've done it, and everything is working fine. I've added only errors=remount-ro in the fstab line for /home.

Now I'm in the process of 'securing' it, and choosing those options more wisely (like adding nodev and nosuid). So, do I need to add 'defaults' or not? Why is it not added?

Which specific options are the 'defaults' anyway in Natty Narwhal?

Do I need to add

UUID=xxx /home ext4 nodev,nosuid,errors=remount-ro 0 2

or

UUID=xxx /home ext4 defaults,nodev,nosuid,error=remount-ro 0 2

or something else?

Also, I've seen that relatime is in the defaults for Natty Narwhal. But are the defaults running if there is no mention of the defaults keyword in fstab and the 'mount' output?

1 Answer

As per man mount (if you use the option defaults):

 defaults Use default options: rw, suid, dev, exec, auto, nouser, and async.

When you use contradicting options (like defaults,noexec), the later will take precedence.

If you don't state any options, the default options in Ubuntu are rw,relatime.

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