How do I specify a label/path with spaces in /etc/fstab? [closed]

Question

I am having trouble trying to get theh permissions for some of my external drives set up.

I believe the probem is due to how I am dealing with spaces in the text such that the commands can be interpreted by the terminal. I have found this, which seems to indicate that I need to configure my etc/fstab file to show the following:

# UNCONFIGURED FSTAB FOR BASE SYSTEM /host/ubuntu/disks/swap.disk    none    swap    sw  0   0 LABEL='Expansion Drive'  /media/'Expansion Drive'  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 LABEL='Expansion Drive_'  /media/'Expansion Drive_'  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 

However, This is showing an error that the drive Drive_' is not ready. I realize that this is due to using ""s or ''s, but I am not sure how else to do this properly. My 2 drives are called Expansion Drive and Expansion Drive_ . Anyone know how to solve this problem?

EDIT: Here is what I can see in the media folder:

chasebrown@ubuntu:/media$ ls -al total 32 drwxr-xr-x  6 root       root        1024 Mar  9 16:32 . drwxr-xr-x 24 root       root        1024 Feb 23 23:14 .. drwx------  1 chasebrown chasebrown  4096 Mar  8 04:21 Expansion Drive drwx------  1 chasebrown chasebrown  4096 Mar  8 04:21 Expansion Drive_ dr-x------  1 chasebrown chasebrown  2048 May 20  2009 GDRV-25922+VR2 drwx------  1 chasebrown chasebrown 20480 Mar  8 04:21 WD EXTERNAL 

Also sudo lsblk -f:

chasebrown@ubuntu:/dev/disk/by-uuid$ sudo lsblk -f [sudo] password for chasebrown:  NAME   FSTYPE  LABEL           MOUNTPOINT sda                             ├─sda1 ntfs    System Reserved  └─sda2 ntfs                     sdb                             └─sdb1 ntfs                    /host sdc                             └─sdc1 ntfs    Expansion Drive /media/Expansion Drive_ sdd                             └─sdd1 ntfs    Expansion Drive /media/Expansion Drive sde                             └─sde1 ntfs    WD EXTERNAL     /media/WD EXTERNAL sr0    iso9660 GDRV-25922+VR2  /media/GDRV-25922+VR2 loop0  ext3                    / 

And sudo blkid:

chasebrown@ubuntu:/dev/disk/by-uuid$ sudo blkid /dev/loop0: UUID="87a15942-982f-4edd-bf44-439dc286fd7c" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"  /dev/sr0: LABEL="GDRV-25922+VR2" TYPE="iso9660"  /dev/sda1: LABEL="System Reserved" UUID="64CEEA61CEEA2B4E" TYPE="ntfs"  /dev/sda2: UUID="4CA4EBC0A4EBAAA2" TYPE="ntfs"  /dev/sdb1: UUID="00064EEE064EE46E" TYPE="ntfs"  /dev/sdc1: LABEL="Expansion Drive" UUID="C682A8EE82A8E3E1" TYPE="ntfs"  /dev/sdd1: LABEL="Expansion Drive" UUID="D006D78406D769CC" TYPE="ntfs"  /dev/sde1: LABEL="WD EXTERNAL" UUID="D65AFC375AFC15C9" TYPE="ntfs"  

Therefore my new fstab file is:

# UNCONFIGURED FSTAB FOR BASE SYSTEM /host/ubuntu/disks/swap.disk    none    swap    sw  0   0 LABEL=Expansion\040Drive  /media/Expansion\040Drive  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 LABEL=Expansion\040Drive_  /media/Expansion\040Drive_  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 

SOLUTION: I ended up changing the LABEL to UUID and it worked for some reason.

Here is the resulting /etc/fstab file was :

# UNCONFIGURED FSTAB FOR BASE SYSTEM /host/ubuntu/disks/swap.disk    none    swap    sw  0   0 UUID=C682A8EE82A8E3E1  /media/Expansion\040Drive  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 UUID=D006D78406D769CC  /media/Expansion\040Drive_  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 

Answer 1

You can use the escape sequence \040 to escape spaces:

# UNCONFIGURED FSTAB FOR BASE SYSTEM /host/ubuntu/disks/swap.disk    none    swap    sw  0   0 LABEL=Expansion\040Drive  /media/Expansion\040Drive  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 LABEL=Expansion\040Drive_  /media/Expansion\040Drive_  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 

BTW, you cannot quote part of the string like you mentioned in the question. If you're quoting, you need to quote the entire string.

Another thing I happen to notice from the output of blkid is that there are 2 partitions (on 2 separate drives sdc1 and sdd1) both having the same LABEL Expansion Drive. To workaround this, you can use UUID instead.

UUID=C682A8EE82A8E3E1  /media/Expansion\040Drive  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0 UUID=D006D78406D769CC  /media/Expansion\040Drive_  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0022,fmask=0133  0  0