MOUNT(2)

NAME
mount, unmount - mount or dismount a file system

LIBRARY
libc

SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/param.h>
#include <sys/mount.h>
int
mount(const char *type, const char *dir, int flags, void *data, size_t data_len);
int
unmount(const char *dir, int flags);

DESCRIPTION
The mount() function grafts a file system object onto the system file tree at the point dir. The argument data describes the file system object to be mounted, and is data_len bytes long. The argument type tells the kernel how to interpret data (See type below). The contents of the file system become available through the new mount point dir. Any files in dir at the time of a successful mount are swept under the carpet so to speak, and are unavailable until the file system is unmounted.

The following flags may be specified to suppress default semantics which affect file system access.

MNT_RDONLY
    The file system should be treated as read-only; even the super-user may not write on it.

MNT_UNION
    Union with underlying filesystem instead of obscuring it.

MNT_HIDDEN
    Cause the df(1) program, and perhaps others, to, by default, exclude this filesystem from its output.

MNT_NOEXEC
    Do not allow files to be executed from the file system.

MNT_NOSUID
    Do not honor setuid or setgid bits on files when executing them.

MNT_NODEV
    Do not interpret special files on the file system.

MNT_NOCOREDUMP
    Do not allow programs to dump core files on the file system.

MNT_NOATIME
    Never update access time in the file system.

MNT_RELATIME
    Update access time on write and change. This helps programs that verify that the file has been read after written to work.

MNT_NODEVMTIME
    Never update modification time of device files.

MNT_SYMPERM
    Recognize the permission of symbolic link when reading or traversing.

MNT_SYNCHRONOUS
    All I/O to the file system should be done synchronously. This will slow I/O performance considerably, but enhances overall filesystem reliability.

MNT_ASYNC
    All I/O to the file system should be done asynchronously. This vastly improves I/O throughput, but at a cost of making the filesystem likely to be completely unrecoverable should the system crash while unwritten data is pending in kernel buffers.

MNT_LOG
    Use a filesystem journal. MNT_LOG causes a journal (or log) to be created in the filesystem, creating a record of meta-data writes to be performed, allowing the actual writes to be deferred. This improves performance in most cases.

MNT_EXTATTR
    Enable extended attributes, if the filesystem supports them and does not enable them by default. Currently this is only the case for UFS1.

The MNT_UPDATE, MNT_RELOAD, and MNT_GETARGS flags indicate that the mount command is being applied to an already mounted file system. The MNT_UPDATE flag allows the mount flags to be changed without requiring that the file system be unmounted and remounted. A conversion from read-write to read-only will fail if any files are currently open for writing on the filesystem, unless the MNT_FORCE flag is also applied. Some file systems may not allow all flags to be changed. For example, some file systems will not allow a change from read-write to read-only. The MNT_RELOAD flag causes kernel filesystem data to be reloaded from the filesystem device. It is only permitted on filesystems mounted read-only. Its purpose is to notify the system that the filesystem data has been modified by some external process. The MNT_GETARGS flag does not alter any of the mounted filesystem's properties, but returns the filesystem-specific arguments for the currently mounted filesystem.

The type argument defines the type of the file system. The types of file systems known to the system are defined in <sys/mount.h>, and those supported by the current running kernel obtained using sysctl(8) to obtain the node vfs.generic.fstypes. data is a pointer to a structure that contains the type specific arguments to mount. Some of the currently supported types of file systems and their type specific data are:

MOUNT_FFS
    struct ufs_args {
          char      *fspec;             /* block special file to mount */
    };

MOUNT_NFS
    struct nfs_args {
          int             version;      /* args structure version */
          struct sockaddr *addr;        /* file server address */
          int             addrlen;      /* length of address */
          int             sotype;       /* Socket type */
          int             proto;        /* and Protocol */
          u_char          *fh;          /* File handle to be mounted */
          int             fhsize;       /* Size, in bytes, of fh */
          int             flags;        /* flags */
          int             wsize;        /* write size in bytes */
          int             rsize;        /* read size in bytes */
          int             readdirsize;  /* readdir size in bytes */
          int             timeo;        /* initial timeout in .1 secs */
          int             retrans;      /* times to retry send */
          int             maxgrouplist; /* Max. size of group list */
          int             readahead;    /* # of blocks to readahead */
          int             leaseterm;    /* Term (sec) of lease */
          int             deadthresh;   /* Retrans threshold */
          char            *hostname;    /* server's name */
    };

MOUNT_MFS
    struct mfs_args {
          char	*fspec;             /* name to export for statfs */
          struct	export_args30 pad;  /* unused */
          caddr_t	base;               /* base of file system in mem */
          u_long	size;               /* size of file system */
    };

The unmount() function call disassociates the file system from the specified mount point dir.

The flags argument may specify MNT_FORCE to specify that the file system should be forcibly unmounted even if files are still active. Active special devices continue to work, but any further accesses to any other active files result in errors even if the file system is later remounted.

RETURN VALUES
mount() returns the value 0 if the mount was successful, the number of bytes written to data for MNT_GETARGS, otherwise -1 is returned and the variable errno is set to indicate the error.

unmount() returns the value 0 if the unmount succeeded; otherwise -1 is returned and the variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
mount() will fail when one of the following occurs:

[EBUSY]
    Another process currently holds a reference to dir, or for an update from read-write to read-only there are files on the filesystem open for writes.

[EFAULT]
    dir points outside the process's allocated address space.

[ELOOP]
    Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating a pathname.

[ENAMETOOLONG]
    A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters.

[ENOENT]
    A component of dir does not exist.

[ENOTDIR]
    A component of name is not a directory, or a path prefix of special is not a directory.

[EPERM]
    The caller is not the super-user, and ordinary user mounts are not permitted or this particular request violates the rules.

The following errors can occur for a ufs file system mount:

[EBUSY]
    Fspec is already mounted.

[EFAULT]
    Fspec points outside the process's allocated address space.

[EINVAL]
    The super block for the file system had a bad magic number or an out of range block size.

[EIO]
    An I/O error occurred while reading the super block or cylinder group information.

[EMFILE]
    No space remains in the mount table.

[ENODEV]
    A component of ufs_args fspec does not exist.

[ENOMEM]
    Not enough memory was available to read the cylinder group information for the file system.

[ENOTBLK]
    Fspec is not a block device.

[ENXIO]
    The major device number of fspec is out of range (this indicates no device driver exists for the associated hardware).

The following errors can occur for a nfs file system mount:

[EFAULT]
    Some part of the information described by nfs_args points outside the process's allocated address space.

[ETIMEDOUT]
    Nfs timed out trying to contact the server.

The following errors can occur for a mfs file system mount:

[EFAULT]
    Name points outside the process's allocated address space.

[EINVAL]
    The super block for the file system had a bad magic number or an out of range block size.

[EIO]
    A paging error occurred while reading the super block or cylinder group information.

[EMFILE]
    No space remains in the mount table.

[ENOMEM]
    Not enough memory was available to read the cylinder group information for the file system.

unmount() may fail with one of the following errors:

[EBUSY]
    A process is holding a reference to a file located on the file system.

[EFAULT]
    dir points outside the process's allocated address space.

[EINVAL]
    The requested directory is not in the mount table.

[EIO]
    An I/O error occurred while writing cached file system information.

[ELOOP]
    Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.

[ENAMETOOLONG]
    A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters.

[ENOTDIR]
    A component of the path is not a directory.

[EPERM]
    The caller is not the super-user.

A ufs or mfs mount can also fail if the maximum number of file systems are currently mounted.

SEE ALSO
df(1), getvfsstat(2), nfssvc(2), getmntinfo(3), symlink(7), mount(8), sysctl(8), umount(8)

HISTORY
The mount() and umount() (now unmount()) function calls were all present in AT&T UNIX.

Prior to NetBSD 4.0 the mount call was used to export NFS filesystems. This is now done through nfssvc().

The data_len argument was added for NetBSD 5.0.

BUGS
Some of the error codes need translation to more obvious messages.

Far more filesystems are supported than those those listed.