MOUNT(8) BSD System Manager's Manual MOUNT(8)
NAME
mount -- mount file systems
SYNOPSIS
mount [-Aadfruvw] [-t type]
mount [-dfruvw] {special | node}
mount [-dfruvw] [-o options] [-t type] special node
DESCRIPTION
The mount command invokes a file system-specific program to prepare and graft the special device on to the file system tree at the point
node, or to update options for an already-mounted file system.
The node argument is always interpreted as a directory in the name space of currently mounted file systems. The special argument is inter-
preted in different ways by the programs that handle different file system types; for example, mount_ffs(8) interprets it as a device node,
mount_null(8) interprets it as a directory name, and mount_nfs(8) interprets it as reference to a remote host and a directory on that host.
The system maintains a list of currently mounted file systems. This list is printed if mount is invoked with no arguments, and with no
options that require some other behaviour.
If exactly one of special or node is provided, then the missing information (including the file system type) is taken from the fstab(5) file.
The provided argument is looked up first in the ``fs_file'', then in the ``fs_spec'' column. If the matching entry in fstab(5) has the
string ``from_mount'' as its ``fs_spec'' field, the device or remote file system already mounted at the location specified by ``fs_spec''
will be used.
If both special and node are provided, then fstab(5) is not used. In this case, if the file system type is not specified via the -t flag,
then mount may determine the type from the disk label (see disklabel(8)). In addition, if special contains a colon (':') or at sign ('@'),
then the nfs type is inferred, but this behaviour is deprecated, and will be removed in a future version of mount.
In NetBSD, the file-system mounting policy is dictated by the running security models. The default security model may allow unprivileged
mounting; see secmodel_suser(9) for details.
The options are as follows:
-A Causes mount to try to mount all of the file systems listed in the fstab(5) file except those for which the ``noauto'' option is
specified.
-a Similar to the -A flag, except that if a file system (other than the root file system) appears to be already mounted, mount will not
try to mount it again. mount assumes that a file system is already mounted if a file system with the same type is mounted on the
given mount point. More stringent checks are not possible because some file system types report strange values for the mounted-from
device for mounted file systems.
-d Causes everything to be done except for the invocation of the file system-specific program. This option is useful in conjunction
with the -v flag to determine what the mount command is trying to do.
-f Forces the revocation of write access when trying to downgrade a file system mount status from read-write to read-only.
-o Options are specified with a -o flag followed by a comma separated string of options. The following options are available:
async All I/O to the file system should be done asynchronously. In the event of a crash, it is impossible for the system to
verify the integrity of data on a file system mounted with this option. You should only use this option if you have an
application-specific data recovery mechanism, or are willing to recreate the file system from scratch.
noasync Clear async mode.
extattr Enable extended attributes, if the filesystem supports them and does not enable them by default. Currently this is only
the case for UFS1.
force The same as -f; forces the revocation of write access when trying to downgrade a file system mount status from read-write
to read-only.
getargs Retrieves the file system specific mount arguments for the given mounted file system and prints them.
hidden By setting the MNT_IGNORE flag, causes the mount point to be excluded from the list of file systems shown by default with
df(1).
noatime Never update the access time field for files. This option is useful for optimizing read performance on file systems that
are used as news spools.
noauto This file system should be skipped when mount is run with the -a flag.
nocoredump Do not allow programs to create crash dumps (core files) on the file system. This option can be used to help protect
sensitive data by keeping core files (which may contain sensitive data) from being created on insecure file systems.
Only core files that would be created by program crashes are prevented by use of this flag; the behavior of savecore(8)
is not affected.
nodev Do not interpret character or block special devices on the file system. This option is useful for a server that has file
systems containing special devices for architectures other than its own.
nodevmtime Do not update modification times on device special files. This option is useful on laptops or other systems that perform
power management.
noexec Do not allow execution of any binaries on the mounted file system. This option is useful for a server that has file sys-
tems containing binaries for architectures other than its own.
nosuid Do not allow set-user-identifier or set-group-identifier bits to take effect.
port (NFS only) Use the specified NFS port.
rdonly The same as -r; mount the file system read-only (even the super-user may not write it).
reload Reload all incore data for a file system. This is used mainly after running fsck(8) on the root file system and finding
things to fix. The file system must be mounted read-only. All cached meta-data are invalidated, superblock and summary
information is re-read from disk, all cached inactive vnodes and file data are invalidated and all inode data are re-read
for all active vnodes.
rump Instead of running mount_type to mount the file system, run rump_type. This uses a userspace server to mount the file
system and does not require kernel support for the specific file system type. See the -t flag and respective rump_type
manual page for more information.
log (FFS only) Mount the file system with wapbl(4) meta-data journaling, also known simply as logging. It provides rapid
metadata updates and eliminates the need to check file system consistency after a system outage. A file system mounted
with log can not be mounted with async. It requires the WAPBL option to be enabled in the running kernel. See wapbl(4)
for more information. This option requires the ``UFS2'' (level 4) superblock layout, which is the default for newly cre-
ated FFSv1 and FFSv2 file systems. To update an old file system with an earlier superblock format, use the -c option of
fsck_ffs(8).
symperm Recognize permission of symbolic link when reading or traversing link.
sync All I/O to the file system should be done synchronously. This is not equivalent to the normal mode in which only meta-
data is written synchronously.
nosync Clear sync mode.
union Causes the namespace at the mount point to appear as the union of the mounted file system root and the existing direc-
tory. Lookups will be done in the mounted file system first. If those operations fail due to a non-existent file the
underlying directory is then accessed. All creates are done in the mounted file system, except for the fdesc file sys-
tem.
update The same as -u; indicate that the status of an already mounted file system should be changed.
Any additional options specific to a given file system type (see the -t option) may be passed as a comma separated list; these
options are distinguished by a leading ``-'' (dash). Options that take a value are specified using the syntax -option=value. For
example, the mount command:
mount -t mfs -o nosuid,-N,-s=32m swap /tmp
causes mount to execute the equivalent of:
/sbin/mount_mfs -o nosuid -N -s 32m swap /tmp
-r The file system is to be mounted read-only. Mount the file system read-only (even the super-user may not write it). The same as the
``rdonly'' argument to the -o option.
-t type
The argument following the -t is used to indicate the file system type. The type ffs is the default. The -t option can be used to
indicate that the actions should only be taken on file systems of the specified type. More than one type may be specified in a comma
separated list. The list of file system types can be prefixed with ``no'' to specify the file system types for which action should
not be taken. For example, the mount command:
mount -a -t nonfs,mfs
mounts all file systems except those of type NFS and MFS.
mount will attempt to execute a program in /sbin/mount_XXX where XXX is replaced by the type name. For example, nfs file systems are
mounted by the program /sbin/mount_nfs.
-u The -u flag indicates that the status of an already mounted file system should be changed. Any of the options discussed above (the
-o option) may be changed; also a file system can be changed from read-only to read-write or vice versa. An attempt to change from
read-write to read-only will fail if any files on the file system are currently open for writing unless the -f flag is also speci-
fied. The set of options is determined by first extracting the options for the file system from the fstab(5) file, then applying any
options specified by the -o argument, and finally applying the -r or -w option.
-v Verbose mode. If this flag is specified more than once, then the file system-specific mount arguments are printed for the given
mounted file system.
-w The file system object is to be read and write.
The options specific to the various file system types are described in the manual pages for those file systems' mount_XXX commands. For
instance the options specific to Berkeley Fast File System (FFS) are described in the mount_ffs(8) manual page.
The particular type of file system in each partition of a disk can be found by examining the disk label with the disklabel(8) command.
FILES
/etc/fstab file system table
EXAMPLES
Some useful examples:
CD-ROM
mount -t cd9660 -r /dev/cd0a /cdrom
MS-DOS
mount -t msdos /dev/fd0a /floppy
NFS
mount -t nfs nfs-server-host:/directory/path /mount-point
MFS (32 megabyte)
mount -t mfs -o nosuid,-s=32m swap /tmp
The ``noauto'' directive in /etc/fstab can be used to make it easy to manually mount and unmount removable media using just the mountpoint
filename, with an entry like this:
/dev/cd0a /cdrom cd9660 ro,noauto 0 0
That would allow a simple command like "mount /cdrom" or "umount /cdrom" for media using the ISO-9660 file system format in the first CD-ROM
drive.
DIAGNOSTICS
The error ``Operation not supported by device'' indicates that the mount for the specified file-system type cannot be completed because the
kernel lacks support for the said file-system. See options(4).
The error ``Operation not permitted'' may indicate that the mount options include privileged options and/or don't include options that
exclude privileged options. One should try using at least ``nodev'' and ``nosuid'' in such cases:
mount -t cd9660 -o nodev,nosuid /dev/cd0a /mnt
SEE ALSO
df(1), mount(2), options(4), wapbl(4), fstab(5), disklabel(8), fsck(8), mount_ados(8), mount_cd9660(8), mount_ext2fs(8), mount_fdesc(8),
mount_ffs(8), mount_filecore(8), mount_kernfs(8), mount_lfs(8), mount_mfs(8), mount_msdos(8), mount_nfs(8), mount_ntfs(8), mount_null(8),
mount_overlay(8), mount_portal(8), mount_procfs(8), mount_tmpfs(8), mount_udf(8), mount_umap(8), mount_union(8), rump_cd9660(8), rump_efs(8),
rump_ext2fs(8), rump_ffs(8), rump_hfs(8), rump_lfs(8), rump_msdos(8), rump_nfs(8), rump_ntfs(8), rump_smbfs(8), rump_sysvbfs(8),
rump_tmpfs(8), rump_udf(8), umount(8)
HISTORY
A mount command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
BSD
July 22, 2011 BSD