/etc/fstab: meaning of "nofail" if "noauto" is already specified
Just for the record:
For an external USB disk which is usually not connected at startup, I have an fstab entry
/dev/disk/by-label/data /data xfs noauto,user,noatime 0 0
When booting there is no error as noauto
keeps the system from trying to mount. When I try to mount manually without the drive connected, I immediately get the error
~$ mount /data
mount: special device /dev/disk/by-label/data does not exist
~$
If I change the line in fstab to
/dev/disk/by-label/data /data xfs noauto,nofail,user,noatime 0 0
there is no error reported, even when the drive is not available:
~$ mount /data
~$
System: Ubuntu 16.04 with systemd.