Simiplified explanation of mlabel command

Can someone explanation to me the command:

sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdb1 ::my_external

I understand what the command does but what I do not understand

-i - it is not listed in the man as a option?

:: - it must be used to id a disk?

How does the sudo command use mlabel to add a label?

Another question: can I use the same command to label my primary disk running UBuntu or must I unmount the disk first? (I know Gparted needs unmount disk.)

(I use this command to label USB drives with FAT32.)

1

1 Answer

From man mtools, section Common features of all mtools commands:

The drive letter : (colon) has a special meaning. It is used to access
image files which are directly specified on the command line using the
-i options. mcopy -i my-image-file.bin ::file1 ::file2 .
This copies file1 and file2 from the image file (my-image-file.bin) to
the /tmp directory.

So, this mlabel command is applying the label my_external to the drive :, which is specified using the -i /dev/sdb1 option.

The pre-installed Disks program can change labels without unmounting disks, so it might be possible for mlabel to do so.

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