.TH MOUNT 8 .UC .SH NAME mount, umount \- mount and dismount file system .SH SYNOPSIS .B /etc/mount [ special name [ .B \-r ] ] .PP .B /etc/mount .B \-a .PP .B /etc/umount special .PP .B /etc/umount .B \-a .SH DESCRIPTION .I Mount announces to the system that a removable file system is present on the device .I special. The file .I name must exist already; it must be a directory (unless the root of the mounted file system is not a directory). It becomes the name of the newly mounted root. The optional argument .B \-r indicates that the file system is to be mounted read-only. .PP .I Umount announces to the system that the removable file system previously mounted on device .I special is to be removed. .PP If the .B \-a option is present for either .I mount or .I umount, all of the file systems described in .I /etc/fstab are attempted to be mounted or unmounted. In this case, .I special and .I name are taken from .I /etc/fstab. The .I special file name from .I /etc/fstab is the block special name. .PP These commands maintain a table of mounted devices in .I /etc/mtab. If invoked without an argument, .I mount prints the table. .PP Physically write-protected and magnetic tape file systems must be mounted read-only or errors will occur when access times are updated, whether or not any explicit write is attempted. .SH FILES .ta 2i /etc/mtab mount table .br /etc/fstab file system table .SH "SEE ALSO" mount(2), fstab(5), mtab(5) .SH BUGS Mounting file systems full of garbage will crash the system. .br Mounting a root directory on a non-directory makes some apparently good pathnames invalid.