--- title: Why You NEED UUIDs in fstab (Linux Storage Explained) description: A real production issue on a Linux server running community forums is diagnosed and fixed live. The server intermittently fails to boot with a kernel panic... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-you-need-uuids-in-fstab-linux-storage-explained--11ltderrz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why You NEED UUIDs in fstab (Linux Storage Explained) | daily.dev og:description: A real production issue on a Linux server running community forums is diagnosed and fixed live. The server intermittently fails to boot with a kernel panic... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-you-need-uuids-in-fstab-linux-storage-explained--11ltderrz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/11ltdeRRZ.png og:image:alt: Why You NEED UUIDs in fstab (Linux Storage Explained) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why You NEED UUIDs in fstab (Linux Storage Explained) **[Learn Linux TV](https://daily.dev/sources/learnlinuxtv)** · 15 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A real production issue on a Linux server running community forums is diagnosed and fixed live. The server intermittently fails to boot with a kernel panic because /etc/fstab references device names like /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, which can be assigned inconsistently across reboots. The fix involves replacing those device identifiers with UUIDs, which permanently follow each storage volume regardless of detection order. Commands covered include blkid, lsblk -f, editing /etc/fstab, and verifying changes with mount -a and findmnt --verify before rebooting. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. 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