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MOUNT(2)		       System Calls Manual			MOUNT(2)

NAME
     mount, nmount, unmount -- mount or dismount a file system

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/param.h>
     #include <sys/mount.h>

     int
     mount(const char *type, const char *dir, int flags, void *data);

     int
     unmount(const char *dir, int flags);

     #include <sys/uio.h>

     int
     nmount(struct iovec *iov, u_int niov, int flags);

DESCRIPTION
     The  mount()  system  call 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.	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  nmount()  system  call  behaves  similarly to mount(), except that the
     mount options (file system type name, device to  mount,  mount-point  name,
     etc.) are passed as an array of name-value pairs in the array iov, contain-
     ing niov elements.  The following options are required by all file systems:

	   fstype    file system type name (e.g., "procfs")
	   fspath    mount point pathname (e.g., "/proc")

     Depending	on  the file system type, other options may be recognized or re-
     quired; for example, most disk-based file systems require a  "from"  option
     containing  the  pathname	of  a  special device in addition to the options
     listed above.

     By default only the super-user may call the mount() system call.  This  re-
     striction can be removed by setting the vfs.usermount sysctl(8) variable to
     a non-zero value; see the BUGS section for more information.

     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.  Specifying MNT_UPDATE
		      without this option will upgrade a read-only  file  system
		      to read/write.

     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.   This  flag is set automatically when the caller is
		      not the super-user.

     MNT_NOATIME      Disable update of file access times.

     MNT_SNAPSHOT     Create a snapshot of the file system.  This  is  currently
		      only supported on UFS2 file systems, see mksnap_ffs(8) for
		      more information.

     MNT_SUIDDIR      Directories with the SUID bit set chown new files to their
		      own  owner.  This flag requires the SUIDDIR option to have
		      been compiled into the kernel to have any effect.  See the
		      mount(8) and chmod(2) pages for more information.

     MNT_SYNCHRONOUS  All I/O to the file system should be done synchronously.

     MNT_ASYNC	      All I/O to the file system should be done asynchronously.

     MNT_FORCE	      Force a read-write mount even if the file  system  appears
		      to  be  unclean.	Dangerous.  Together with MNT_UPDATE and
		      MNT_RDONLY, specify that the file system is to be forcibly
		      downgraded to a read-only mount even  if	some  files  are
		      open for writing.

     MNT_NOCLUSTERR   Disable read clustering.

     MNT_NOCLUSTERW   Disable write clustering.

     MNT_NOCOVER      Do not mount over the root of another mount point.

     MNT_EMPTYDIR     Require an empty directory for the mount point directory.

     The flag MNT_UPDATE indicates that the mount command is being applied to an
     already  mounted  file  system.   This allows the mount flags to be changed
     without requiring that the file system be unmounted  and  remounted.   Some
     file systems may not allow all flags to be changed.  For example, many file
     systems will not allow a change from read-write to read-only.

     The  flag MNT_RELOAD causes the vfs subsystem to update its data structures
     pertaining to the specified already mounted file system.

     The type argument names the file system.  The types of file  systems  known
     to the system can be obtained with lsvfs(1).

     The  data	argument is a pointer to a structure that contains the type spe-
     cific arguments to mount.	The format for these argument structures is  de-
     scribed in the manual page for each file system.  By convention file system
     manual pages are named by prefixing ``mount_'' to the name of the file sys-
     tem  as returned by lsvfs(1).  Thus the NFS file system is described by the
     mount_nfs(8) manual page.	It should be noted that a manual  page	for  de-
     fault file systems, known as UFS and UFS2, does not exist.

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

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

     If the MNT_BYFSID flag is specified, dir should instead be a file system ID
     encoded as "FSID:val0:val1", where val0 and val1 are the  contents  of  the
     fsid_t val[] array in decimal.  The file system that has the specified file
     system ID will be unmounted.

RETURN VALUES
     Upon successful completion, the value 0 is returned; otherwise the value -1
     is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
     The  mount()  and nmount() system calls will fail when one of the following
     occurs:

     [EPERM]		The caller is neither the super-user nor  the  owner  of
			dir.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]	A  component  of  a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or
			the entire length of a path name exceeded  1023  charac-
			ters.

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

     [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.

     [EBUSY]		Another process currently holds a reference to dir.

     [EBUSY]		The MNT_NOCOVER option	was  given,  and  the  requested
			mount point is already the root of another mount point.

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

     [EIO]		An I/O error occurred while reading data from special.

     [EINTEGRITY]	The backing store for special  detected  corrupted  data
			while reading.

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

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

     [ENOTBLK]		The fspec argument is not a block device.

     [ENOTEMPTY]	The MNT_EMPTYDIR option was specified, and the requested
			mount point is not an empty directory.

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

     [EBUSY]		fspec is already mounted.

     [EMFILE]		No space remains in the mount table.

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

     [EINTEGRITY]	The  super  block  for	the  file system had a bad check
			hash.  The check hash can usually be corrected	by  run-
			ning fsck(8).

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

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

     [EFAULT]		The  fspec  argument  points outside the process's allo-
			cated address space.

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

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

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

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

     [EPERM]		The  caller  is  neither the super-user nor the user who
			issued the corresponding mount() call.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]	The length of the path name exceeded 1023 characters.

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

     [ENOENT]		The file system ID specified using  MNT_BYFSID	was  not
			found in the mount table.

     [EINVAL]		The  file system ID specified using MNT_BYFSID could not
			be decoded.

     [EINVAL]		The specified file system is the root file system.

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

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

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

SEE ALSO
     lsvfs(1), mksnap_ffs(8), mount(8), umount(8)

HISTORY
     The  mount()  and unmount() functions appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.  The
     nmount() system call first appeared in FreeBSD 5.0.

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

     Allowing untrusted  users	to  mount  arbitrary  media,  e.g.  by	enabling
     vfs.usermount, should not be considered safe.  Most file systems in FreeBSD
     were not built to safeguard against malicious devices.

FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly	 March 30, 2020 			MOUNT(2)

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