LABEL=Apps /Applications hfs 1 2Digging through the various man pages (many outdated or for missing programs like getmntent, others), I kept seeing references to Unique Universal Identifiers, UUIDs. These would allow an fstab not dependent on disk names, but instead would be able to recognize this 16-digit string, thus allowing more Mac-like freedom.
A Disclaimer: This is probably something to be careful about, make sure typos are watched for ... I had to boot up without my home directory, and many things were thus temporarily broken until I fixed one little error in the uuid for this drive. Be sure that you record the uuids the first time you see them, it becomes annoying to mount and unmount drives more than necessary to get the uuids.
please be sure to back up any critical or important data
[robg adds: I couldn't agree more, and I have not tested this one (nor do I have any plans to do so!), so please, proceed with caution...]
Then I tried to figure out how. After an hour or so of google mining, I finally discovered a few quick commands which would make this possible. Step one, possibly easy, possibly hard -- unmount the drives you wish to enter in as UUIDs instead of LABELs in the fstab. To determine device names, use disktool -l to print a list. pdisk disk n -dump works as well; replace n with the number a given drive is supected to be. The latter method is quicker, but less pure on some higher level, be quite assured.
Once these drives are unmounted, type:
% /System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util -s devicenameReplace devicename with the disk ID, for example, disk0s10. This command apparently adds a UUID to the drive. The next step, though easily typed, can be finicky (reasons unknown). Type:
% /System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util -k device > ~/file_to_store_uuid_inOnce this has been done for each drive which is to be referenced by UUID, use the terminal to open the fstab file (sudo pico /etc/fstab works well, vim, whatever you feel comfortable with) and either add or replace existing entries with the format:UUID=16-character uuid /mountpoint filesystem 1 2Replace "16-character uuid," "mountpoint," and "filesystem", of course, with the appropriate data. Filesystem is most likely hfs, unless it is a CD-ROM you are referencing, a Winpod, or any other non-Mac-only device.
Once all new entries have been added, and conflicting entries removed, NetInfo must be informed. This is accomplished in the same way Numbski described: Type sudo niload -m fstab /. Alternately, a reboot is equally effective though much less efficient. I have found that using Numbski's SetFile -a V filename tricks are effective, but another method, now that we are liberated from being tied to the staticicity of a name, is simply adding a period to the beggining of its name. The period in front is aesthetic, quick, and the UNIX way of doing things. Sometimes, though, the Finder ignores this, so I tend to use both if I want a volume to not show up in the Computer level of Finder windows:
% diskutil rename device newname(Replace "device" and "newname" with the proper values). This is a quick command-line shortcut to renaming drives.
If a drive does not appear, make sure you had a folder already existing at the mount point, that you typed everything properly -- make sure that you haven't actually mounted it! df -k will reveal which drives are mounted and what amounts of space they possess. Using disktool -l again to see what's going on can be, of course, supplemented by df -k and ls -fal | less to snoop around and determine the cause. Altogether, it took me three or four reversible failures to get it right. Don't give up!

