What is PARTUUID?

In Ubuntu 14.04 there is only one UUID for each partition.

For example my sudo blkid shows

/dev/sda1: UUID="b2be9c80-8413-4fdb-a562-6ca072385c02" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="ccd2f497-5d8f-48c7-9102-c339c2689ff8" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/sdb4: UUID="eb34f285-4a78-494c-9950-a2095b1740ce" TYPE="ext4"

But in Ubuntu 15.04 in blkid and /etc/fstab there is also PARTUUID like this

/dev/sda5: LABEL="volume1" UUID="bb69c64d-5c45-4bab-90e1-ba46e5afd6b2" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="094b7241-4895-4051-90ab-439252b4e3f4"

What is it for?

I don't know what it is for, but it is a GPT feature. Since the G in GPT stands for GUID (Globally Unique Identifier), the PARTUUIDs might be the GUID of the corresponding GPT partition. The UUID, on the other hand, is from the filesystem.

The PARTUUID should remain unchanged if you format the partition to a different filesystem, as long as you don't modify the partition itself. I tested it on Arch Linux on a spare pen drive:

$ sudo blkid /dev/sdd1
/dev/sdd1: UUID="1e867d95-dd7f-4c97-aa3f-7ee4490744bc" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="a96b7ca5-f7f8-40c9-a35c-6d995787ab2f"
$ sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sdd1
mke2fs 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
/dev/sdd1 contains a ext4 file system
    created on Fri Jul 10 20:51:19 2015
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Creating filesystem with 1954167 4k blocks and 488640 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 6c3393bf-aba1-4854-9815-f62818facfda
Superblock backups stored on blocks: 
    32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632

Allocating group tables: done                            
Writing inode tables: done                            
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done 

$ sudo blkid /dev/sdd1       
/dev/sdd1: UUID="6c3393bf-aba1-4854-9815-f62818facfda" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="a96b7ca5-f7f8-40c9-a35c-6d995787ab2f"
$ sudo mkfs -t ntfs -Q /dev/sdd1
Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Creating NTFS volume structures.
mkntfs completed successfully. Have a nice day.
$ sudo blkid /dev/sdd1          
/dev/sdd1: UUID="2905A16E2CDB44E8" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="a96b7ca5-f7f8-40c9-a35c-6d995787ab2f"

What is PARTUUID?

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