Question on Mounting Filesystems

douglukas

In almost all examples of mounting file systems I see that the mount point is in the /mnt directory. However when exploring the file systems using the df command, I see file systems that do show up in the /mnt directory. Leading me to assume that file systems do not necessarily need to be mounted in the /mnt directory. Is this a correct analysis? My thoughts are that as long as the file system can be accessed via a correct path definition, that is all that is required in Linux. Any help answering this question would clear up a lot of my confusion on this subject.

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

coop

yes, you can mount anywhere you have a directory to use -- in fact you can mount over a directory with stuff already in it and it will be become buried and invisible. Normally there will be nothing in /mnt by default. However, it is kind of a default used to mount relatively temporary things, often nfs mounts. It is less used today as systemd likes to stasht hings in /run/...., but /mnt is still relevant. I don't recall ever seeing a distribution mount anything on /mnt by default or at boot as it defeats the purpose of having /mnt . Personally I often use something like /tmp/work or /tmp/play etc.

douglukas

Thanks Coop, very helpful info