mount error message

From: Bruce Dubbs <[email protected]>

$ mount /run

returns an error message:

mount: /run: No such file or directory

I have a user that complains that mount is giving an incorrect error message under some circumstances. For instance if mtab is symlinked to /proc/self/mounts the command and /run is not in fstab:

$ mount /run

returns an error message:

mount: /run: No such file or directory

However if mtab is a regular file, the error message is:

mount: can't find /run in /etc/fstab

It would be appropriate if both situations could return the 2nd message.

Hallo, Bruce,

Du meintest am 07.09.14:

Quoted 13 lines

I have a user that complains that mount is giving an incorrect error message under some circumstances. For instance if mtab is symlinked to /proc/self/mounts the command and /run is not in fstab:

$ mount /run

returns an error message:

mount: /run: No such file or directory

However if mtab is a regular file, the error message is:

mount: can't find /run in /etc/fstab

Quoted 2 lines

It would be appropriate if both situations could return the 2nd message.

There's no need to put the device into a special line in "/etc/fstab".

mount /dev/sdxn /run

should always work, with the appropriate values for x and n.

I have a user that complains that mount is giving an incorrect error message under some circumstances. For instance if mtab is symlinked to /proc/self/mounts the command and /run is not in fstab:

$ mount /run

returns an error message:

mount: /run: No such file or directory

However if mtab is a regular file, the error message is:

mount: can't find /run in /etc/fstab

Quoted 6 lines · Bruce Dubbs

I have a user that complains that mount is giving an incorrect error message under some circumstances. For instance if mtab is symlinked to /proc/self/mounts the command and /run is not in fstab:

$ mount /run

Quoted 7 lines

returns an error message:

mount: /run: No such file or directory

However if mtab is a regular file, the error message is:

mount: can't find /run in /etc/fstab

$ test -d /mnt/test && echo "yes" || echo "no"
yes
$ test -d /nothing && echo "yes" || echo "no"
no

$ ls -l  /etc/mtab 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Jun 17 15:42 /etc/mtab -> /proc/mounts

$ mount /mnt/test
mount: can't find /mnt/test in /etc/fstab

$ mount /nothing
mount: /nothing: No such file or directory

$ ls -l  /etc/mtab 
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 2693 Sep 10 10:16 /etc/mtab

$ mount /mnt/test
mount: can't find /mnt/test in /etc/fstab
$ mount /nothing 
mount: /nothing: No such file or directory

All works as expected.

Note that mount(8) sanitize paths specified by non-root users on command line, so the message "No such file or directory" is really expected and it's far before libmount starts to evaluate things in mtab/fstab.

Karel

Hello I'm the user in question. The specific situation was a boot time failure where /proc had failed to mount. So to enumerate the conditions and the result:

1) /proc is not mounted (or has failed to mount)
2) /etc/mtab is a symlink to /proc/mounts (or /proc/self/mounts)
3) /run is not in /etc/fstab
4) The directory /run exists on the filesystem

In this situation 'mount /run' results in:
mount: /run: mount failed: No such file or directory

Obviously mount is referring to /etc/mtab not existing, so the error message at present is misleading.

Quoted 4 lines · Dylan Cali

1) /proc is not mounted (or has failed to mount)
2) /etc/mtab is a symlink to /proc/mounts (or /proc/self/mounts)
3) /run is not in /etc/fstab
4) The directory /run exists on the filesystem

Very special use-case :-)

Quoted 2 lines

In this situation 'mount /run' results in:
mount: /run: mount failed: No such file or directory

Fixed in master branch. Thanks!