Auto mount and ignore errors

[Andrew Brampton]

Hi,

Recently my server hung on a reboot because it was unable to fsck a
ext2 file system. This was because I didn't have the ext2 fsck tool
installed (I do now). The partition in question was however not
important, yet I listed it as "auto" in fstab. I would have preferred
if my server noticed the problem, failed to mount it and just continue
booting as normal. I tried the "late" option in the fstab but that
just seem to hang the server later in the boot.

So my question is, is there a fstab option which will ignore a failed
mount, and if possible continue to boot? I've read the man page, and
did a bit of googling, but didn't find anything. Would there be any
objection to a patch which implemented a "ignerror" flag?

thanks
Andrew