UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

(i) The command
mount -a [-t type] [-O optlist]
(usually given in a bootscript) causes all file systems mentioned in
fstab (of the proper type and/or having or not having the proper
options) to be mounted as indicated, except for those whose line con-
tains the noauto keyword. Adding the -F option will make mount fork, so
that the filesystems are mounted simultaneously.

(ii) When mounting a file system mentioned in fstab, it suffices to
give only the device, or only the mount point.

(iii) Normally, only the superuser can mount file systems. However,
when fstab contains the user option on a line, anybody can mount the
corresponding system.

Thus, given a line
/dev/cdrom /cd iso9660 ro,user,noauto,unhide
any user can mount the iso9660 file system found on his CDROM using the
command
mount /dev/cdrom
or
mount /cd
For more details, see fstab(5)