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NAME

       mount - mount filesystem

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/mount.h>

       int mount(const char *source, const char *target,
                 const char *filesystemtype, unsigned long mountflags,
                 const void *data);

DESCRIPTION

       mount()  attaches  the filesystem specified by source (which is often a pathname referring
       to a device, but can also be the pathname of a directory or file, or a  dummy  string)  to
       the location (a directory or file) specified by the pathname in target.

       Appropriate   privilege  (Linux:  the  CAP_SYS_ADMIN  capability)  is  required  to  mount
       filesystems.

       Values  for  the  filesystemtype  argument  supported  by  the  kernel   are   listed   in
       /proc/filesystems (e.g., "btrfs", "ext4", "jfs", "xfs", "vfat", "fuse", "tmpfs", "cgroup",
       "proc", "mqueue", "nfs", "cifs", "iso9660").  Further types may become available when  the
       appropriate modules are loaded.

       The  data  argument is interpreted by the different filesystems.  Typically it is a string
       of comma-separated options understood by this filesystem.  See mount(8) for details of the
       options available for each filesystem type.

       A call to mount() performs one of a number of general types of operation, depending on the
       bits specified in mountflags.  The choice of which operation to perform is  determined  by
       testing  the  bits  set  in mountflags, with the tests being conducted in the order listed
       here:

       *  Remount an existing mount: mountflags includes MS_REMOUNT.

       *  Create a bind mount: mountflags includes MS_BIND.

       *  Change the propagation type of an existing mount: mountflags includes one of MS_SHARED,
          MS_PRIVATE, MS_SLAVE, or MS_UNBINDABLE.

       *  Move an existing mount to a new location: mountflags includes MS_MOVE.

       *  Create a new mount: mountflags includes none of the above flags.

       Each  of  these operations is detailed later in this page.  Further flags may be specified
       in mountflags to modify the behavior of mount(), as described below.

   Additional mount flags
       The list below describes the additional flags that can be specified in  mountflags.   Note
       that  some  operation  types ignore some or all of these flags, as described later in this
       page.

       MS_DIRSYNC (since Linux 2.5.19)
              Make directory changes on this  filesystem  synchronous.   (This  property  can  be
              obtained for individual directories or subtrees using chattr(1).)

       MS_LAZYTIME (since Linux 4.0)
              Reduce  on-disk  updates  of  inode timestamps (atime, mtime, ctime) by maintaining
              these changes only in memory.  The on-disk timestamps are updated only when:

              (a)  the inode needs to be updated for some change unrelated to file timestamps;

              (b)  the application employs fsync(2), syncfs(2), or sync(2);

              (c)  an undeleted inode is evicted from memory; or

              (d)  more than 24 hours have passed since the inode was written to disk.

              This mount option  significantly  reduces  writes  needed  to  update  the  inode's
              timestamps,  especially  mtime and atime.  However, in the event of a system crash,
              the atime and mtime fields on disk might be out of date by up to 24 hours.

              Examples of workloads where this option could be  of  significant  benefit  include
              frequent  random  writes  to  preallocated  files,  as  well  as  cases  where  the
              MS_STRICTATIME  mount  option  is  also  enabled.   (The  advantage  of   combining
              MS_STRICTATIME  and  MS_LAZYTIME  is that stat(2) will return the correctly updated
              atime, but the atime updates will be flushed to  disk  only  in  the  cases  listed
              above.)

       MS_MANDLOCK
              Permit  mandatory  locking  on  files  in this filesystem.  (Mandatory locking must
              still be enabled on a per-file basis, as described in fcntl(2).)  Since Linux  4.5,
              this  mount  option  requires  the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability and a kernel configured
              with the CONFIG_MANDATORY_FILE_LOCKING option.

       MS_NOATIME
              Do not update access times for (all types of) files on this filesystem.

       MS_NODEV
              Do not allow access to devices (special files) on this filesystem.

       MS_NODIRATIME
              Do not update access times for directories on this filesystem.  This flag  provides
              a  subset  of the functionality provided by MS_NOATIME; that is, MS_NOATIME implies
              MS_NODIRATIME.

       MS_NOEXEC
              Do not allow programs to be executed from this filesystem.

       MS_NOSUID
              Do not honor set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits or file capabilities when  executing
              programs from this filesystem.

       MS_RDONLY
              Mount filesystem read-only.

       MS_REC (since Linux 2.4.11)
              Used  in  conjunction  with  MS_BIND  to  create  a  recursive  bind  mount, and in
              conjunction with the propagation type flags to recursively change  the  propagation
              type of all of the mounts in a subtree.  See below for further details.

       MS_RELATIME (since Linux 2.6.20)
              When  a  file  on  this  filesystem is accessed, update the file's last access time
              (atime) only if the current value of atime is less than or equal to the file's last
              modification  time  (mtime)  or  last  status  change time (ctime).  This option is
              useful for programs, such as mutt(1), that need to know when a file has  been  read
              since  it  was  last  modified.   Since  Linux  2.6.30,  the kernel defaults to the
              behavior  provided  by  this  flag  (unless  MS_NOATIME  was  specified),  and  the
              MS_STRICTATIME  flag  is  required  to  obtain traditional semantics.  In addition,
              since Linux 2.6.30, the file's last access time is always updated  if  it  is  more
              than 1 day old.

       MS_SILENT (since Linux 2.6.17)
              Suppress  the  display  of  certain  (printk()) warning messages in the kernel log.
              This flag supersedes the misnamed and obsolete  MS_VERBOSE  flag  (available  since
              Linux 2.4.12), which has the same meaning.

       MS_STRICTATIME (since Linux 2.6.30)
              Always  update  the  last  access  time  (atime)  when files on this filesystem are
              accessed.  (This was the default behavior before Linux  2.6.30.)   Specifying  this
              flag overrides the effect of setting the MS_NOATIME and MS_RELATIME flags.

       MS_SYNCHRONOUS
              Make  writes  on  this filesystem synchronous (as though the O_SYNC flag to open(2)
              was specified for all file opens to this filesystem).

       From Linux 2.4 onward, some of the above flags are settable on a  per-mount  basis,  while
       others  apply  to the superblock of the mounted filesystem, meaning that all mounts of the
       same filesystem share those flags.  (Previously, all of the flags were per-superblock.)

       The per-mount-point flags are as follows:

       *  Since Linux 2.4: MS_NODEV, MS_NOEXEC, and MS_NOSUID flags are settable on a  per-mount-
          point basis.

       *  Since Linux 2.6.16: MS_NOATIME and MS_NODIRATIME.

       *  Since Linux 2.6.20: MS_RELATIME.

       The  following  flags are per-superblock: MS_DIRSYNC, MS_LAZYTIME, MS_MANDLOCK, MS_SILENT,
       and MS_SYNCHRONOUS.  The initial settings of these flags are determined on the first mount
       of  the  filesystem,  and  will be shared by all subsequent mounts of the same filesystem.
       Subsequently, the settings of the flags can  be  changed  via  a  remount  operation  (see
       below).  Such changes will be visible via all mount points associated with the filesystem.

       Since  Linux 2.6.16, MS_RDONLY can be set or cleared on a per-mount-point basis as well as
       on the underlying filesystem superblock.  The mounted filesystem will be writable only  if
       neither the filesystem nor the mountpoint are flagged as read-only.

   Remounting an existing mount
       An  existing  mount  may be remounted by specifying MS_REMOUNT in mountflags.  This allows
       you to change the mountflags and data of an existing mount without having to  unmount  and
       remount  the filesystem.  target should be the same value specified in the initial mount()
       call.

       The source and filesystemtype arguments are ignored.

       The mountflags and data arguments should match the values used  in  the  original  mount()
       call, except for those parameters that are being deliberately changed.

       The  following  mountflags can be changed: MS_LAZYTIME, MS_MANDLOCK, MS_NOATIME, MS_NODEV,
       MS_NODIRATIME, MS_NOEXEC, MS_NOSUID, MS_RELATIME, MS_RDONLY, MS_STRICTATIME (whose  effect
       is to clear the MS_NOATIME and MS_RELATIME flags), and MS_SYNCHRONOUS.  Attempts to change
       the setting of the MS_DIRSYNC and MS_SILENT flags during a remount are  silently  ignored.
       Note  that  changes  to  per-superblock  flags  are  visible  via  all mount points of the
       associated filesystem (because the per-superblock flags are shared by all mount points).

       Since Linux 3.17, if none of MS_NOATIME, MS_NODIRATIME, MS_RELATIME, or MS_STRICTATIME  is
       specified in mountflags, then the remount operation preserves the existing values of these
       flags (rather than defaulting to MS_RELATIME).

       Since Linux 2.6.26, the MS_REMOUNT flag can be used with MS_BIND to modify only  the  per-
       mount-point  flags.   This  is particularly useful for setting or clearing the "read-only"
       flag on a mount point without changing the underlying filesystem.   Specifying  mountflags
       as:

           MS_REMOUNT | MS_BIND | MS_RDONLY

       will make access through this mountpoint read-only, without affecting other mount points.

   Creating a bind mount
       If  mountflags includes MS_BIND (available since Linux 2.4), then perform a bind mount.  A
       bind mount makes a file or a directory subtree visible at another point within the  single
       directory  hierarchy.   Bind  mounts  may  cross  filesystem boundaries and span chroot(2)
       jails.

       The filesystemtype and data arguments are ignored.

       The remaining bits (other than MS_REC, described below) in  the  mountflags  argument  are
       also  ignored.  (The bind mount has the same mount options as the underlying mount point.)
       However, see the discussion of remounting above, for a method of making an  existing  bind
       mount read-only.

       By default, when a directory is bind mounted, only that directory is mounted; if there are
       any submounts under the directory tree, they are not bind mounted.  If the MS_REC flag  is
       also  specified,  then  a recursive bind mount operation is performed: all submounts under
       the  source  subtree  (other  than  unbindable  mounts)  are  also  bind  mounted  at  the
       corresponding location in the target subtree.

   Changing the propagation type of an existing mount
       If  mountflags  includes  one  of  MS_SHARED,  MS_PRIVATE, MS_SLAVE, or MS_UNBINDABLE (all
       available since Linux 2.6.15), then the propagation type of an existing mount is  changed.
       If more than one of these flags is specified, an error results.

       The  only other flags that can be specified while changing the propagation type are MS_REC
       (described below) and MS_SILENT (which is ignored).

       The source, filesystemtype, and data arguments are ignored.

       The meanings of the propagation type flags are as follows:

       MS_SHARED
              Make this mount point shared.  Mount and  unmount  events  immediately  under  this
              mount  point  will  propagate  to  the  other mount points that are members of this
              mount's peer group.  Propagation here means that the same  mount  or  unmount  will
              automatically  occur  under  all  of  the  other  mount  points  in the peer group.
              Conversely, mount and unmount events that take place under peer mount  points  will
              propagate to this mount point.

       MS_PRIVATE
              Make  this  mount point private.  Mount and unmount events do not propagate into or
              out of this mount point.

       MS_SLAVE
              If this is a shared mount point that is a member of  a  peer  group  that  contains
              other  members,  convert it to a slave mount.  If this is a shared mount point that
              is a member of a peer group that contains no other members, convert it to a private
              mount.  Otherwise, the propagation type of the mount point is left unchanged.

              When  a  mount point is a slave, mount and unmount events propagate into this mount
              point from the (master) shared peer group of which it was formerly a member.  Mount
              and unmount events under this mount point do not propagate to any peer.

              A mount point can be the slave of another peer group while at the same time sharing
              mount and unmount events with a peer group of which it is a member.

       MS_UNBINDABLE
              Make this mount unbindable.  This is like a private mount,  and  in  addition  this
              mount can't be bind mounted.  When a recursive bind mount (mount() with the MS_BIND
              and MS_REC flags) is performed on a directory subtree, any unbindable mounts within
              the  subtree  are automatically pruned (i.e., not replicated) when replicating that
              subtree to produce the target subtree.

       By default, changing the propagation type affects only the target  mount  point.   If  the
       MS_REC flag is also specified in mountflags, then the propagation type of all mount points
       under target is also changed.

       For further details regarding mount propagation types (including the  default  propagation
       type assigned to new mounts), see mount_namespaces(7).

   Moving a mount
       If  mountflags  contains  the  flag  MS_MOVE  (available  since Linux 2.4.18), then move a
       subtree: source specifies an existing mount point and target specifies the new location to
       which that mount point is to be relocated.  The move is atomic: at no point is the subtree
       unmounted.

       The remaining bits in the mountflags argument are ignored, as are the  filesystemtype  and
       data arguments.

   Creating a new mount point
       If none of MS_REMOUNT, MS_BIND, MS_MOVE, MS_SHARED, MS_PRIVATE, MS_SLAVE, or MS_UNBINDABLE
       is specified in mountflags, then mount() performs its default action: creating a new mount
       point.   source  specifies  the  source  for the new mount point, and target specifies the
       directory at which to create the mount point.

       The filesystemtype and data arguments are employed, and further bits may be  specified  in
       mountflags to modify the behavior of the call.

RETURN VALUE

       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

       The  error  values  given  below  result  from  filesystem  type independent errors.  Each
       filesystem type may have its own special errors and its own  special  behavior.   See  the
       Linux kernel source code for details.

       EACCES A component of a path was not searchable.  (See also path_resolution(7).)

       EACCES Mounting a read-only filesystem was attempted without giving the MS_RDONLY flag.

              The  filesystem  may  be  read-only for various reasons, including: it resides on a
              read-only optical disk; it is resides on a device with a physical switch  that  has
              been  set  to mark the device read-only; the filesystem implementation was compiled
              with read-only support;  or  errors  were  detected  when  initially  mounting  the
              filesystem,  so  that  it was marked read-only and can't be remounted as read-write
              (until the errors are fixed).

              Some filesystems instead return the error EROFS on an attempt to mount a  read-only
              filesystem.

       EACCES The  block  device  source  is  located  on  a filesystem mounted with the MS_NODEV
              option.

       EBUSY  An attempt was made to stack a new mount directly on top of an existing mount point
              that was created in this mount namespace with the same source and target.

       EBUSY  source  cannot  be  remounted  read-only,  because  it  still  holds files open for
              writing.

       EFAULT One of the pointer arguments points outside the user address space.

       EINVAL source had an invalid superblock.

       EINVAL A remount operation (MS_REMOUNT) was attempted, but source was not already  mounted
              on target.

       EINVAL A  move operation (MS_MOVE) was attempted, but the mount tree under source includes
              unbindable mounts and target is a mount point that has propagation type MS_SHARED.

       EINVAL A move operation (MS_MOVE) was attempted, but the parent mount of source mount  has
              propagation type MS_SHARED.

       EINVAL A  move operation (MS_MOVE) was attempted, but source was not a mount point, or was
              '/'.

       EINVAL mountflags  includes  more  than  one  of  MS_SHARED,  MS_PRIVATE,   MS_SLAVE,   or
              MS_UNBINDABLE.

       EINVAL mountflags  includes  MS_SHARED,  MS_PRIVATE,  MS_SLAVE,  or MS_UNBINDABLE and also
              includes a flag other than MS_REC or MS_SILENT.

       EINVAL An attempt was made to bind mount an unbindable mount.

       EINVAL In an unprivileged mount namespace  (i.e.,  a  mount  namespace  owned  by  a  user
              namespace  that  was  created  by  an  unprivileged  user),  a bind mount operation
              (MS_BIND) was attempted without specifying (MS_REC), which would have revealed  the
              filesystem tree underneath one of the submounts of the directory being bound.

       ELOOP  Too many links encountered during pathname resolution.

       ELOOP  A move operation was attempted, and target is a descendant of source.

       EMFILE (In case no block device is required:) Table of dummy devices is full.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              A pathname was longer than MAXPATHLEN.

       ENODEV filesystemtype not configured in the kernel.

       ENOENT A pathname was empty or had a nonexistent component.

       ENOMEM The kernel could not allocate a free page to copy filenames or data into.

       ENOTBLK
              source is not a block device (and a device was required).

       ENOTDIR
              target, or a prefix of source, is not a directory.

       ENXIO  The major number of the block device source is out of range.

       EPERM  The caller does not have the required privileges.

       EROFS  Mounting  a  read-only  filesystem was attempted without giving the MS_RDONLY flag.
              See EACCES, above.

VERSIONS

       The definitions  of  MS_DIRSYNC,  MS_MOVE,  MS_PRIVATE,  MS_REC,  MS_RELATIME,  MS_SHARED,
       MS_SLAVE, MS_STRICTATIME, and MS_UNBINDABLE were added to glibc headers in version 2.12.

CONFORMING TO

       This  function  is  Linux-specific  and  should  not  be  used  in programs intended to be
       portable.

NOTES

       Since Linux 2.4 a single filesystem can be mounted at multiple mount points, and  multiple
       mounts can be stacked on the same mount point.

       The  mountflags argument may have the magic number 0xC0ED (MS_MGC_VAL) in the top 16 bits.
       (All of the other flags  discussed  in  DESCRIPTION  occupy  the  low  order  16  bits  of
       mountflags.)   Specifying  MS_MGC_VAL  was  required  in kernel versions prior to 2.4, but
       since Linux 2.4 is no longer required and is ignored if specified.

       The original MS_SYNC flag was renamed MS_SYNCHRONOUS in 1.1.69 when  a  different  MS_SYNC
       was added to <mman.h>.

       Before  Linux  2.4  an  attempt  to  execute  a  set-user-ID  or set-group-ID program on a
       filesystem mounted with MS_NOSUID would fail with EPERM.  Since Linux 2.4 the  set-user-ID
       and set-group-ID bits are just silently ignored in this case.

   Mount namespaces
       Starting  with  kernel  2.4.19, Linux provides mount namespaces.  A mount namespace is the
       set of filesystem mounts that are visible to a process.   Mount  namespaces  can  be  (and
       usually are) shared between multiple processes, and changes to the namespace (i.e., mounts
       and unmounts) by one  process  are  visible  to  all  other  processes  sharing  the  same
       namespace.   (The  pre-2.4.19  Linux  situation can be considered as one in which a single
       namespace was shared by every process on the system.)

       A child process created  by  fork(2)  shares  its  parent's  mount  namespace;  the  mount
       namespace is preserved across an execve(2).

       A  process  can  obtain  a  private  mount namespace if: it was created using the clone(2)
       CLONE_NEWNS flag, in which case its new namespace is initialized  to  be  a  copy  of  the
       namespace of the process that called clone(2); or it calls unshare(2) with the CLONE_NEWNS
       flag, which causes the caller's mount namespace to obtain a private copy of the  namespace
       that it was previously sharing with other processes, so that future mounts and unmounts by
       the caller are invisible to other  processes  (except  child  processes  that  the  caller
       subsequently creates) and vice versa.

       For further details on mount namespaces, see mount_namespaces(7).

   Parental relationship between mount points
       Each mount point has a parent mount point.  The overall parental relationship of all mount
       points defines the single directory  hierarchy  seen  by  the  processes  within  a  mount
       namespace.

       The  parent of a new mount point is defined when the mount point is created.  In the usual
       case, the parent of a new mount is the  mount  point  of  the  filesystem  containing  the
       directory  or  file  at which the new mount is attached.  In the case where a new mount is
       stacked on top of an existing mount, the parent of the new mount  is  the  previous  mount
       that was stacked at that location.

       The   parental   relationship   between   mount   points   can   be   discovered  via  the
       /proc/[pid]/mountinfo file (see below).

   /proc/[pid]/mounts and /proc/[pid]/mountinfo
       The Linux-specific /proc/[pid]/mounts file exposes the list of mount points in  the  mount
       namespace  of  the  process with the specified ID.  The /proc/[pid]/mountinfo file exposes
       even more information about mount points, including the  propagation  type  and  mount  ID
       information  that  makes  it  possible to discover the parental relationship between mount
       points.  See proc(5) and mount_namespaces(7) for details of this file.

SEE ALSO

       mountpoint(1), chroot(2), ioctl_iflags(2), pivot_root(2), umount(2),  mount_namespaces(7),
       path_resolution(7), findmnt(8), lsblk(8), mount(8), umount(8)

COLOPHON

       This  page  is  part of release 5.05 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the
       project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of  this  page,  can  be
       found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.