Mounting

Complete Guide to File Mounting in Linux

Mounting is the process of making a storage device or filesystem accessible at a specific location in the directory tree. Below is a comprehensive guide covering all aspects of mounting in Linux.

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1. Basics of Mounting in Linux

In Linux, filesystems and storage devices must be mounted before use. The mount command is used for this purpose.

Checking Mounted Filesystems

mount

or

df -h

This displays all currently mounted filesystems.

Check all filesystem

lsblk

here nvme0n1 - mounted to root path

You can see that our EBS disk (nvme1n1) is there, but it hasn't been mounted yet. Let's fix that.

First, we'll create a ext4 filesystem on the device, and mount it at /var/lib/clickhouse which is where all the ClickHouse data will be stored

sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/nvme1n1
sudo mkdir /var/lib/clickhouse
sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1 /var/lib/clickhouse

Next, we'll register the volume in /etc/fstab so the volume is automatically mounted after instance restarts.

sudo vi /etc/fstab

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2. Mounting a Filesystem Manually

Syntax

mount -t <filesystem_type> <device> <mount_point>

Example: Mounting an Ext4 Partition

sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sdb1 /mnt

• /dev/sdb1: The device (can be found using lsblk or fdisk -l).

• /mnt: The directory where it will be mounted.

Mounting an NTFS Partition

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt

Mounting a USB Drive

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

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Feature	mkfs	mount
What it does	Creates a file system (formats)	Attaches file system to path
Destructive?	Yes – wipes existing data	No – non-destructive
When used?	Before first-time use of disk	Every time you want to use disk
Example use	mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1	mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/data

3. Making Mounts Persistent (Auto-mount on Reboot)

To keep a device mounted after reboot, you need to add an entry to /etc/fstab.

Steps:

1. Get the UUID of the device:

   blkid

2. Edit the fstab file:

   sudo nano /etc/fstab

3. Add an entry in the format:

   UUID=<uuid>  /mnt  ext4  defaults  0  2

4. Apply changes:

   sudo mount -a

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4. Unmounting a Filesystem

sudo umount /mnt

If the filesystem is busy, force unmount:

sudo umount -l /mnt

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5. Bind Mounts (Mounting a Directory to Another Location)

sudo mount --bind /source/path /destination/path

To make it persistent:

/source/path /destination/path none bind 0 0

in /etc/fstab.

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6. Mounting Network Drives (NFS & CIFS)

NFS Share

sudo mount -t nfs 192.168.1.100:/shared /mnt/nfs

CIFS (Windows Shared Folder)

sudo mount -t cifs -o username=user,password=pass //192.168.1.100/share /mnt/windows

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7. Mounting ISO Files

sudo mount -o loop /path/to/file.iso /mnt/iso

To unmount:

sudo umount /mnt/iso

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8. Mounting TMPFS (In-Memory Filesystem)

sudo mount -t tmpfs -o size=512M tmpfs /mnt/tmp

To make it persistent:

tmpfs /mnt/tmp tmpfs defaults,size=512M 0 0

in /etc/fstab.

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9. Mounting External Drives Automatically (Udev Rules)

For auto-mounting USB devices, use udev rules or systemd.

1. Create a rule:

   sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usb-mount.rules

2. Add:

   ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="sd[b-z][0-9]", RUN+="/bin/mount /dev/%k /mnt/usb"

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10. Checking Mount Points & Filesystem Details

• List all partitions:

  lsblk

• Check mounted filesystems:

  df -Th

• View /etc/mtab (active mounts):

  cat /etc/mtab

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Final Thoughts

This guide covers everything from basic mounting to persistent and network mounting. If you need automation, fstab is your best choice, and for temporary mounts, mount works well. 🚀