Bind mounts in Linux

Introduction

Bind mounts are a powerful feature in Linux that allow you to attach a filesystem to a location that already exists in the file system tree. This can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as:

• Sharing a directory between multiple processes or users
• Creating a read-only copy of a directory
• Mounting a loopback device

Creating a bind mount

To create a bind mount, you use the mount command with the --bind flag. The syntax is as follows:

mount --bind path_to_source_dir path_to_mount_point

For example, to mount the /home/user directory to the /mnt/home directory, you would use the following command:

mount --bind /home/user /mnt/home

Options

The mount command has a number of options that can be used to control the behavior of bind mounts. Some of the most common options include:

• -o ro: Mount the filesystem read-only
• -o rw: Mount the filesystem read-write
• -o slave: Mount the filesystem as a slave to another mount
• -o private: Mount the filesystem as private to the current process

Unmounting

To unmount a bind mount, use the umount command followed by the path to the mount point. For example, to unmount the /mnt/home mount point, you would use the following command:

umount /mnt/home

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