LinuxQuestions.org

LinuxQuestions.org (/questions/)
-   Linux - Newbie (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/)
-   -   Mount Points In File System (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/mount-points-in-file-system-101640/)

pankajtakawale 10-08-2003 09:40 AM

Mount Points In File System
 
I'm not able to grasp the concept of Mount Points in File Systems.

Pankaj

aaa 10-08-2003 09:57 AM

Before you can access a filesystem, you must mount it. One filesystem is mounted to /, most others are mounted to folders in the / filesystem. These are known as mount points. For example, say you have 2 partitions, one for windows and one for Linux. When Linux is booting, it would mount the the Linux partiton (say, /dev/hda2) to / so it can access files on there. Say there is a /mnt/win folder on the / filesystem. You can mount your windows partition (perhaps /dev/hda1) to this /mnt/win folder using this command: 'mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/win' . Once the windows partition is mounted at the /mnt/win mount point, you access the files on the windows partition by entering the /mnt/win folder: 'cd /mnt/win'.

Wynd 10-08-2003 10:27 AM

Basically, mount points are places that point to a file system, be it a partition on your hard drive, a floppy/CD drive, or even another computer. It's designed to seamlessl integrate with the directory structure. For example, in Windows, if you want to have a network drive available, you need to assign it a drive letter. Say Windows gives it E: . All your MP3s are on this network drive, so E: makes no sense. In *nix, you can mount it anywhere you want, so you could make a folder named /mp3s and mount the network drive there, and whenever you go to that folder it actually goes to the drive across the network. Also, if I add a Zip drive for example in Windows it will again give it a letter, like G: . In Linux, you can have it be at /zipdrive or wherever, and whenever you copy files to the /zipdrive folder, they go on the zip disk in the drive. So that's what mounting is for and what it does. Before you can use a disk or some hardware, you need to give it a place that points to it that you can use in the file system. AFAIK, Windows does it too, it's just automatic so you can't see it happening.


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:00 AM.