1mount(2) System Calls Manual mount(2)
2
6 mount - mount filesystem
7
9 Standard C library (libc, -lc)
10
12 #include <sys/mount.h>
13 int mount(const char *source, const char *target,
15 const char *filesystemtype, unsigned long mountflags,
16 const void *_Nullable data);
17
19 mount() attaches the filesystem specified by source (which is often a
20 pathname referring to a device, but can also be the pathname of a di‐
21 rectory or file, or a dummy string) to the location (a directory or
22 file) specified by the pathname in target.
23 Appropriate privilege (Linux: the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability) is required
25 to mount filesystems.
26 Values for the filesystemtype argument supported by the kernel are
28 listed in /proc/filesystems (e.g., "btrfs", "ext4", "jfs", "xfs",
29 "vfat", "fuse", "tmpfs", "cgroup", "proc", "mqueue", "nfs", "cifs",
30 "iso9660"). Further types may become available when the appropriate
31 modules are loaded.
32 The data argument is interpreted by the different filesystems. Typi‐
34 cally it is a string of comma-separated options understood by this
35 filesystem. See mount(8) for details of the options available for each
36 filesystem type. This argument may be specified as NULL, if there are
37 no options.
38 A call to mount() performs one of a number of general types of opera‐
40 tion, depending on the bits specified in mountflags. The choice of
41 which operation to perform is determined by testing the bits set in
42 mountflags, with the tests being conducted in the order listed here:
43 • Remount an existing mount: mountflags includes MS_REMOUNT.
45 • Create a bind mount: mountflags includes MS_BIND.
47 • Change the propagation type of an existing mount: mountflags in‐
49 cludes one of MS_SHARED, MS_PRIVATE, MS_SLAVE, or MS_UNBINDABLE.
50 • Move an existing mount to a new location: mountflags includes
52 MS_MOVE.
53 • Create a new mount: mountflags includes none of the above flags.
55 Each of these operations is detailed later in this page. Further flags
57 may be specified in mountflags to modify the behavior of mount(), as
58 described below.
59 Additional mount flags
61 The list below describes the additional flags that can be specified in
62 mountflags. Note that some operation types ignore some or all of these
63 flags, as described later in this page.
64 MS_DIRSYNC (since Linux 2.5.19)
66 Make directory changes on this filesystem synchronous. (This
67 property can be obtained for individual directories or subtrees
68 using chattr(1).)
69 MS_LAZYTIME (since Linux 4.0)
71 Reduce on-disk updates of inode timestamps (atime, mtime, ctime)
72 by maintaining these changes only in memory. The on-disk time‐
73 stamps are updated only when:
74 • the inode needs to be updated for some change unrelated to
76 file timestamps;
77 • the application employs fsync(2), syncfs(2), or sync(2);
79 • an undeleted inode is evicted from memory; or
81 • more than 24 hours have passed since the inode was written to
83 disk.
84 This mount option significantly reduces writes needed to update
86 the inode's timestamps, especially mtime and atime. However, in
87 the event of a system crash, the atime and mtime fields on disk
88 might be out of date by up to 24 hours.
89 Examples of workloads where this option could be of significant
91 benefit include frequent random writes to preallocated files, as
92 well as cases where the MS_STRICTATIME mount option is also en‐
93 abled. (The advantage of combining MS_STRICTATIME and MS_LAZY‐
94 TIME is that stat(2) will return the correctly updated atime,
95 but the atime updates will be flushed to disk only in the cases
96 listed above.)
97 MS_MANDLOCK
99 Permit mandatory locking on files in this filesystem. (Manda‐
100 tory locking must still be enabled on a per-file basis, as de‐
101 scribed in fcntl(2).) Since Linux 4.5, this mount option re‐
102 quires the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability and a kernel configured with
103 the CONFIG_MANDATORY_FILE_LOCKING option. Mandatory locking has
104 been fully deprecated in Linux 5.15, so this flag should be con‐
105 sidered deprecated.
106 MS_NOATIME
108 Do not update access times for (all types of) files on this
109 filesystem.
110 MS_NODEV
112 Do not allow access to devices (special files) on this filesys‐
113 tem.
114 MS_NODIRATIME
116 Do not update access times for directories on this filesystem.
117 This flag provides a subset of the functionality provided by
118 MS_NOATIME; that is, MS_NOATIME implies MS_NODIRATIME.
119 MS_NOEXEC
121 Do not allow programs to be executed from this filesystem.
122 MS_NOSUID
124 Do not honor set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits or file capabili‐
125 ties when executing programs from this filesystem. In addition,
126 SELinux domain transitions require the permission nosuid_transi‐
127 tion, which in turn needs also the policy capability nnp_no‐
128 suid_transition.
129 MS_RDONLY
131 Mount filesystem read-only.
132 MS_REC (since Linux 2.4.11)
134 Used in conjunction with MS_BIND to create a recursive bind
135 mount, and in conjunction with the propagation type flags to re‐
136 cursively change the propagation type of all of the mounts in a
137 subtree. See below for further details.
138 MS_RELATIME (since Linux 2.6.20)
140 When a file on this filesystem is accessed, update the file's
141 last access time (atime) only if the current value of atime is
142 less than or equal to the file's last modification time (mtime)
143 or last status change time (ctime). This option is useful for
144 programs, such as mutt(1), that need to know when a file has
145 been read since it was last modified. Since Linux 2.6.30, the
146 kernel defaults to the behavior provided by this flag (unless
147 MS_NOATIME was specified), and the MS_STRICTATIME flag is re‐
148 quired to obtain traditional semantics. In addition, since
149 Linux 2.6.30, the file's last access time is always updated if
150 it is more than 1 day old.
151 MS_SILENT (since Linux 2.6.17)
153 Suppress the display of certain (printk()) warning messages in
154 the kernel log. This flag supersedes the misnamed and obsolete
155 MS_VERBOSE flag (available since Linux 2.4.12), which has the
156 same meaning.
157 MS_STRICTATIME (since Linux 2.6.30)
159 Always update the last access time (atime) when files on this
160 filesystem are accessed. (This was the default behavior before
161 Linux 2.6.30.) Specifying this flag overrides the effect of
162 setting the MS_NOATIME and MS_RELATIME flags.
163 MS_SYNCHRONOUS
165 Make writes on this filesystem synchronous (as though the O_SYNC
166 flag to open(2) was specified for all file opens to this
167 filesystem).
168 MS_NOSYMFOLLOW (since Linux 5.10)
170 Do not follow symbolic links when resolving paths. Symbolic
171 links can still be created, and readlink(1), readlink(2), real‐
172 path(1), and realpath(3) all still work properly.
173 From Linux 2.4 onward, some of the above flags are settable on a per-
175 mount basis, while others apply to the superblock of the mounted
176 filesystem, meaning that all mounts of the same filesystem share those
177 flags. (Previously, all of the flags were per-superblock.)
178 The per-mount-point flags are as follows:
180 • Since Linux 2.4: MS_NODEV, MS_NOEXEC, and MS_NOSUID flags are set‐
182 table on a per-mount-point basis.
183 • Additionally, since Linux 2.6.16: MS_NOATIME and MS_NODIRATIME.
185 • Additionally, since Linux 2.6.20: MS_RELATIME.
187 The following flags are per-superblock: MS_DIRSYNC, MS_LAZYTIME,
189 MS_MANDLOCK, MS_SILENT, and MS_SYNCHRONOUS. The initial settings of
190 these flags are determined on the first mount of the filesystem, and
191 will be shared by all subsequent mounts of the same filesystem. Subse‐
192 quently, the settings of the flags can be changed via a remount opera‐
193 tion (see below). Such changes will be visible via all mounts associ‐
194 ated with the filesystem.
195 Since Linux 2.6.16, MS_RDONLY can be set or cleared on a per-mount-
197 point basis as well as on the underlying filesystem superblock. The
198 mounted filesystem will be writable only if neither the filesystem nor
199 the mountpoint are flagged as read-only.
200 Remounting an existing mount
202 An existing mount may be remounted by specifying MS_REMOUNT in mount‐
203 flags. This allows you to change the mountflags and data of an exist‐
204 ing mount without having to unmount and remount the filesystem. target
205 should be the same value specified in the initial mount() call.
206 The source and filesystemtype arguments are ignored.
208 The mountflags and data arguments should match the values used in the
210 original mount() call, except for those parameters that are being de‐
211 liberately changed.
212 The following mountflags can be changed: MS_LAZYTIME, MS_MANDLOCK,
214 MS_NOATIME, MS_NODEV, MS_NODIRATIME, MS_NOEXEC, MS_NOSUID, MS_RELATIME,
215 MS_RDONLY, MS_STRICTATIME (whose effect is to clear the MS_NOATIME and
216 MS_RELATIME flags), and MS_SYNCHRONOUS. Attempts to change the setting
217 of the MS_DIRSYNC and MS_SILENT flags during a remount are silently ig‐
218 nored. Note that changes to per-superblock flags are visible via all
219 mounts of the associated filesystem (because the per-superblock flags
220 are shared by all mounts).
221 Since Linux 3.17, if none of MS_NOATIME, MS_NODIRATIME, MS_RELATIME, or
223 MS_STRICTATIME is specified in mountflags, then the remount operation
224 preserves the existing values of these flags (rather than defaulting to
225 MS_RELATIME).
226 Since Linux 2.6.26, the MS_REMOUNT flag can be used with MS_BIND to
228 modify only the per-mount-point flags. This is particularly useful for
229 setting or clearing the "read-only" flag on a mount without changing
230 the underlying filesystem. Specifying mountflags as:
231 MS_REMOUNT | MS_BIND | MS_RDONLY
233 will make access through this mountpoint read-only, without affecting
235 other mounts.
236 Creating a bind mount
238 If mountflags includes MS_BIND (available since Linux 2.4), then per‐
239 form a bind mount. A bind mount makes a file or a directory subtree
240 visible at another point within the single directory hierarchy. Bind
241 mounts may cross filesystem boundaries and span chroot(2) jails.
242 The filesystemtype and data arguments are ignored.
244 The remaining bits (other than MS_REC, described below) in the mount‐
246 flags argument are also ignored. (The bind mount has the same mount
247 options as the underlying mount.) However, see the discussion of re‐
248 mounting above, for a method of making an existing bind mount read-
249 only.
250 By default, when a directory is bind mounted, only that directory is
252 mounted; if there are any submounts under the directory tree, they are
253 not bind mounted. If the MS_REC flag is also specified, then a recur‐
254 sive bind mount operation is performed: all submounts under the source
255 subtree (other than unbindable mounts) are also bind mounted at the
256 corresponding location in the target subtree.
257 Changing the propagation type of an existing mount
259 If mountflags includes one of MS_SHARED, MS_PRIVATE, MS_SLAVE, or
260 MS_UNBINDABLE (all available since Linux 2.6.15), then the propagation
261 type of an existing mount is changed. If more than one of these flags
262 is specified, an error results.
263 The only other flags that can be specified while changing the propaga‐
265 tion type are MS_REC (described below) and MS_SILENT (which is ig‐
266 nored).
267 The source, filesystemtype, and data arguments are ignored.
269 The meanings of the propagation type flags are as follows:
271 MS_SHARED
273 Make this mount shared. Mount and unmount events immediately
274 under this mount will propagate to the other mounts that are
275 members of this mount's peer group. Propagation here means that
276 the same mount or unmount will automatically occur under all of
277 the other mounts in the peer group. Conversely, mount and un‐
278 mount events that take place under peer mounts will propagate to
279 this mount.
280 MS_PRIVATE
282 Make this mount private. Mount and unmount events do not propa‐
283 gate into or out of this mount.
284 MS_SLAVE
286 If this is a shared mount that is a member of a peer group that
287 contains other members, convert it to a slave mount. If this is
288 a shared mount that is a member of a peer group that contains no
289 other members, convert it to a private mount. Otherwise, the
290 propagation type of the mount is left unchanged.
291 When a mount is a slave, mount and unmount events propagate into
293 this mount from the (master) shared peer group of which it was
294 formerly a member. Mount and unmount events under this mount do
295 not propagate to any peer.
296 A mount can be the slave of another peer group while at the same
298 time sharing mount and unmount events with a peer group of which
299 it is a member.
300 MS_UNBINDABLE
302 Make this mount unbindable. This is like a private mount, and
303 in addition this mount can't be bind mounted. When a recursive
304 bind mount (mount() with the MS_BIND and MS_REC flags) is per‐
305 formed on a directory subtree, any unbindable mounts within the
306 subtree are automatically pruned (i.e., not replicated) when
307 replicating that subtree to produce the target subtree.
308 By default, changing the propagation type affects only the target
310 mount. If the MS_REC flag is also specified in mountflags, then the
311 propagation type of all mounts under target is also changed.
312 For further details regarding mount propagation types (including the
314 default propagation type assigned to new mounts), see mount_name‐
315 spaces(7).
316 Moving a mount
318 If mountflags contains the flag MS_MOVE (available since Linux 2.4.18),
319 then move a subtree: source specifies an existing mount and target
320 specifies the new location to which that mount is to be relocated. The
321 move is atomic: at no point is the subtree unmounted.
322 The remaining bits in the mountflags argument are ignored, as are the
324 filesystemtype and data arguments.
325 Creating a new mount
327 If none of MS_REMOUNT, MS_BIND, MS_MOVE, MS_SHARED, MS_PRIVATE,
328 MS_SLAVE, or MS_UNBINDABLE is specified in mountflags, then mount()
329 performs its default action: creating a new mount. source specifies
330 the source for the new mount, and target specifies the directory at
331 which to create the mount point.
332 The filesystemtype and data arguments are employed, and further bits
334 may be specified in mountflags to modify the behavior of the call.
335
337 On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
338 set to indicate the error.
339
341 The error values given below result from filesystem type independent
342 errors. Each filesystem type may have its own special errors and its
343 own special behavior. See the Linux kernel source code for details.
344 EACCES A component of a path was not searchable. (See also path_reso‐
346 lution(7).)
347 EACCES Mounting a read-only filesystem was attempted without giving the
349 MS_RDONLY flag.
350 The filesystem may be read-only for various reasons, including:
352 it resides on a read-only optical disk; it is resides on a de‐
353 vice with a physical switch that has been set to mark the device
354 read-only; the filesystem implementation was compiled with read-
355 only support; or errors were detected when initially mounting
356 the filesystem, so that it was marked read-only and can't be re‐
357 mounted as read-write (until the errors are fixed).
358 Some filesystems instead return the error EROFS on an attempt to
360 mount a read-only filesystem.
361 EACCES The block device source is located on a filesystem mounted with
363 the MS_NODEV option.
364 EBUSY An attempt was made to stack a new mount directly on top of an
366 existing mount point that was created in this mount namespace
367 with the same source and target.
368 EBUSY source cannot be remounted read-only, because it still holds
370 files open for writing.
371 EFAULT One of the pointer arguments points outside the user address
373 space.
374 EINVAL source had an invalid superblock.
376 EINVAL A remount operation (MS_REMOUNT) was attempted, but source was
378 not already mounted on target.
379 EINVAL A move operation (MS_MOVE) was attempted, but the mount tree un‐
381 der source includes unbindable mounts and target is a mount that
382 has propagation type MS_SHARED.
383 EINVAL A move operation (MS_MOVE) was attempted, but the parent mount
385 of source mount has propagation type MS_SHARED.
386 EINVAL A move operation (MS_MOVE) was attempted, but source was not a
388 mount, or was '/'.
389 EINVAL A bind operation (MS_BIND) was requested where source referred a
391 mount namespace magic link (i.e., a /proc/pid/ns/mnt magic link
392 or a bind mount to such a link) and the propagation type of the
393 parent mount of target was MS_SHARED, but propagation of the re‐
394 quested bind mount could lead to a circular dependency that
395 might prevent the mount namespace from ever being freed.
396 EINVAL mountflags includes more than one of MS_SHARED, MS_PRIVATE,
398 MS_SLAVE, or MS_UNBINDABLE.
399 EINVAL mountflags includes MS_SHARED, MS_PRIVATE, MS_SLAVE, or MS_UN‐
401 BINDABLE and also includes a flag other than MS_REC or
402 MS_SILENT.
403 EINVAL An attempt was made to bind mount an unbindable mount.
405 EINVAL In an unprivileged mount namespace (i.e., a mount namespace
407 owned by a user namespace that was created by an unprivileged
408 user), a bind mount operation (MS_BIND) was attempted without
409 specifying (MS_REC), which would have revealed the filesystem
410 tree underneath one of the submounts of the directory being
411 bound.
412 ELOOP Too many links encountered during pathname resolution.
414 ELOOP A move operation was attempted, and target is a descendant of
416 source.
417 EMFILE (In case no block device is required:) Table of dummy devices is
419 full.
420 ENAMETOOLONG
422 A pathname was longer than MAXPATHLEN.
423 ENODEV filesystemtype not configured in the kernel.
425 ENOENT A pathname was empty or had a nonexistent component.
427 ENOMEM The kernel could not allocate a free page to copy filenames or
429 data into.
430 ENOTBLK
432 source is not a block device (and a device was required).
433 ENOTDIR
435 target, or a prefix of source, is not a directory.
436 ENXIO The major number of the block device source is out of range.
438 EPERM The caller does not have the required privileges.
440 EPERM An attempt was made to modify (MS_REMOUNT) the MS_RDONLY, MS_NO‐
442 SUID, or MS_NOEXEC flag, or one of the "atime" flags (MS_NOAT‐
443 IME, MS_NODIRATIME, MS_RELATIME) of an existing mount, but the
444 mount is locked; see mount_namespaces(7).
445 EROFS Mounting a read-only filesystem was attempted without giving the
447 MS_RDONLY flag. See EACCES, above.
448
450 Linux.
451
453 The definitions of MS_DIRSYNC, MS_MOVE, MS_PRIVATE, MS_REC, MS_RELA‐
454 TIME, MS_SHARED, MS_SLAVE, MS_STRICTATIME, and MS_UNBINDABLE were added
455 to glibc headers in glibc 2.12.
456 Since Linux 2.4 a single filesystem can be mounted at multiple mount
458 points, and multiple mounts can be stacked on the same mount point.
459 The mountflags argument may have the magic number 0xC0ED (MS_MGC_VAL)
461 in the top 16 bits. (All of the other flags discussed in DESCRIPTION
462 occupy the low order 16 bits of mountflags.) Specifying MS_MGC_VAL was
463 required before Linux 2.4, but since Linux 2.4 is no longer required
464 and is ignored if specified.
465 The original MS_SYNC flag was renamed MS_SYNCHRONOUS in 1.1.69 when a
467 different MS_SYNC was added to <mman.h>.
468 Before Linux 2.4 an attempt to execute a set-user-ID or set-group-ID
470 program on a filesystem mounted with MS_NOSUID would fail with EPERM.
471 Since Linux 2.4 the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are just silently
472 ignored in this case.
473
475 Mount namespaces
476 Starting with Linux 2.4.19, Linux provides mount namespaces. A mount
477 namespace is the set of filesystem mounts that are visible to a
478 process. Mount namespaces can be (and usually are) shared between mul‐
479 tiple processes, and changes to the namespace (i.e., mounts and un‐
480 mounts) by one process are visible to all other processes sharing the
481 same namespace. (The pre-2.4.19 Linux situation can be considered as
482 one in which a single namespace was shared by every process on the sys‐
483 tem.)
484 A child process created by fork(2) shares its parent's mount namespace;
486 the mount namespace is preserved across an execve(2).
487 A process can obtain a private mount namespace if: it was created using
489 the clone(2) CLONE_NEWNS flag, in which case its new namespace is ini‐
490 tialized to be a copy of the namespace of the process that called
491 clone(2); or it calls unshare(2) with the CLONE_NEWNS flag, which
492 causes the caller's mount namespace to obtain a private copy of the
493 namespace that it was previously sharing with other processes, so that
494 future mounts and unmounts by the caller are invisible to other pro‐
495 cesses (except child processes that the caller subsequently creates)
496 and vice versa.
497 For further details on mount namespaces, see mount_namespaces(7).
499 Parental relationship between mounts
501 Each mount has a parent mount. The overall parental relationship of
502 all mounts defines the single directory hierarchy seen by the processes
503 within a mount namespace.
504 The parent of a new mount is defined when the mount is created. In the
506 usual case, the parent of a new mount is the mount of the filesystem
507 containing the directory or file at which the new mount is attached.
508 In the case where a new mount is stacked on top of an existing mount,
509 the parent of the new mount is the previous mount that was stacked at
510 that location.
511 The parental relationship between mounts can be discovered via the
513 /proc/pid/mountinfo file (see below).
514 /proc/pid/mounts and /proc/pid/mountinfo
516 The Linux-specific /proc/pid/mounts file exposes the list of mounts in
517 the mount namespace of the process with the specified ID. The
518 /proc/pid/mountinfo file exposes even more information about mounts,
519 including the propagation type and mount ID information that makes it
520 possible to discover the parental relationship between mounts. See
521 proc(5) and mount_namespaces(7) for details of this file.
522
524 mountpoint(1), chroot(2), ioctl_iflags(2), mount_setattr(2),
525 pivot_root(2), umount(2), mount_namespaces(7), path_resolution(7),
526 findmnt(8), lsblk(8), mount(8), umount(8)
527Linux man-pages 6.05 2023-04-03 mount(2)