Once you create a partition, you should use mount command to mount the partition into a mount point (a directory), to start using the filesystem.

You need to add the -t FILESYSTEMTYPE argument to the command, replacing FILESYSTEMTYPE with your filesystem type.valid filesystem types are:

auto – this is a special one. It will try to guess the fs type when you use this.

ext4 – this is probably the most common Linux fs type of the last few years

ext3 – this is the most common Linux fs type from a couple years back

ntfs – this is the most common Windows fs type or larger external hard drives

vfat – this is the most common fs type used for smaller external hard drives

> mount -t type device destination_dir

> mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /mnt

In the above example, the option “-o ro” indicates that the cdrom should be mounted with read-only access. Also, make sure that the destination directory (in the above example, /mnt) exist before you execute the mount command.

> mount

You can also use df command to view all the mount points.

The filesystems listed in /etc/fstab gets mounted during booting process. After booting, system administrator may unmount some of the partitions for various reasons. If you want all the filesystems to be mounted as specified in /etc/fstab, use -a option with mount as shown below:

> cat /etc/fstab

> mount -a

> mount -M /mydata /mnt/

Mount an iso image into a directory

> mount -t iso9660 -o loop pdf_collections.iso /mnt

The same -a option can be used with umount to unmount all the filesystems mentioned in /etc/mtab

Example