Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

Name

mount

Synopsis

    mount [options] [[device] directory]

System administration command. Mount a file structure. The file structure on device is mounted on directory. If no device is specified, mount looks for an entry in /etc/fstab to find what device is associated with the given directory. The directory, which must already exist and should be empty, becomes the name of the root of the newly mounted file structure. If mount is invoked with no arguments, it displays the name of each mounted device, the directory on which it is mounted, its filesystem type, and any mount options associated with the device.

Options

-a

Mount all filesystems listed in /etc/fstab. Use -t to limit this to all filesystems of a particular type.

-f

Fake mount. Go through the motions of checking the device and directory, but do not actually mount the filesystem.

-F

When used with -a, fork a new process to mount each filesystem.

-h

Print help message, then exit.

-i

For a filesystem type fs, don’t run the helper program /sbin/mount. fs.

-l

When reporting on mounted filesystems, show filesystem labels for filesystems that have them.

-L label

Mount filesystem with the specified label.

-n

Do not record the mount in /etc/mtab.

-o option

Qualify the mount with a mount option. Many filesystem types have their own options. The following are common to most filesystems:

async

Do input and output to the device asynchronously.

atime, noatime

Update inode access time for each access. This is the default behavior. noatime does ...