What is the proper way to configure /etc/fstab on an ec2 instance?

I'm new to ec2 and don't know much about /etc/fstab.

In addition to the root volume on my ec2 instances, I have a volume mounted to /data and a third volume for swap.

I'm having trouble figuring out the correct entries for my fstab file and I'm wondering what others have.

Mine looks like this:

UUID=711e1ec2-2a36-4405-bf46-44b43cfee42e / ext4 defaults 1 1
UUID=40bb7487-db4e-4bee-bda2-8732155ae962  /data  ext4  defaults,nofail  0  2
UUID=2f67cabb-94b8-4074-b3bb-344ebc171299 swap swap defaults 0 0 

I put the UUIDs in there because it seemed to me that sometimes the ec2 instance, when rebooted, might switch around the device names. What I mean by that is that the volume with /data starts out as /dev/nvme1n2 and then after a reboot it might be /dev/nvme1n1. I find it hard to believe this happens so maybe I'm wrong on this.

So at any rate, I use the UUIDs in /etc/fstab just to be sure.

I'd like to know if anyone else is using device names instead of UUIDs? I'd prefer to use device names because that's less of a maintenance headache.

Thanks.

Solution 1:

The approach you described is the same as in the official AWS documentation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ebs-using-volumes.html

Therefore I guess you can say it's "the proper way".

Solution 2:

If you want your volumes to be mounted even after reboot use UUID and no one using partition names due to this in aws.

AWS reference