Name
mount — stdin stdout - file -- opt --help --version
Synopsis
mount [options
]device
|directory
The mount
command makes a
partition accessible. Most commonly it handles disk drives (say,
/dev/sda1) and removal media
(e.g., USB keys), making them accessible via an existing directory
(say, /mnt/mydir):
# mkdir /mnt/mydir # ls /mnt/mydir Notice it’s empty # mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/mydir # ls /mnt/mydir file1 file2 file3 Files on the mounted partition # df /mnt/mydir Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 1011928 285744 674780 30% /mnt/mydir
mount
has tons of options
and uses; we will discuss only the most basic.
In most common cases, mount
reads the file /etc/fstab
(filesystem table) to learn how to mount a desired disk. For
example, if you type mount /usr, the mount
command looks up “/usr” in /etc/fstab, whose line might look like
this:
/dev/sda8 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2
Here mount
learns, among
other things, that disk device /dev/sda8 should be mounted on /usr as a Linux ext3-formatted
filesystem. Now you can mount /dev/sda8 on /usr with either of these commands:
# mount /dev/sda8 by device # mount /usr by directory
mount
is run typically by
the superuser, but common devices like USB and CD-ROM drives often
can be mounted and unmounted by any user.
$ mount /media/cdrom
Useful options
|
Specify the type of
filesystem, such as |
|
List all mounted
filesystems; works with |
|
Mount all filesystems listed in /etc/fstab. Ignores entries ... |
Get Linux Pocket Guide, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.