On Thursday 23 October 2003 05:20 pm, deedee wrote: > On Thu, 23 Oct 2003 17:53:26 -0400, Bryan Phinney wrote: > > Actually, he is quite correct. /mnt/cdrom is a directory located off > > of /mnt which in turn is located off of /. > > I believe you are confusing how a directory tree is set up to interface > with you as a user in order to help you find your files with the actual > devices where files are being stored.
No, I am clearly stating that the directory that is used as a mount point for the cdrom device is an actual directory and can exist independent of the device that is associated to it by the mount command up until the mount command redirects the mount point to point to the device file instead of a directory on the file system. If you simply go out and look at it yourself, you will see that until the mount command is issued for a cdrom, there is clearly a directory present on the root drive in the /mnt folder that you can access with absolutely no disc mounted in the cdrom drive. For that matter, I can simply enough create a directory directly under root called cdrom and alter the fstab with a simply edit and any cdroms mounted on the drive will then be mounted in the directory cdrom off of the root drive. I accept that after I mount the drive, I am no longer hitting the directory in the filesystem when I access the cdrom, but up until I mount the media, I am. > Check your /etc/fstab. That defines your file system table and says > where the directories in your directory tree are really located. Actually, no. fstab merely designates the device file and mount point for devices when the mount command is issued. Much like a mapped network drive in NFS, the actual directory that is used for the mount point actually exists prior to remapping the location to point to the network resource and does not actually point to the device until the mount command points the directory to the device. > > Experiment: As root, with no cd mounted, cp a file to /mnt/cdrom and > > you will note that the file is copied and then exists in /mnt/cdrom. > > It actually exists in memory. [EMAIL PROTECTED] mnt]# ls -l total 9 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 48 Oct 23 17:49 cdrom/ drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 22 19:13 floppy/ dr-x------ 1 root root 8192 Oct 20 18:31 winxp/ Doesn't look like memory to me.... > I don't want to get into a fruitless debate about this. I know it is a > difficult concept. I'm only responding because I believe you are asking > for problems if you treat all the places on the directory > tree/interface as if they are actually all places on your hard drive. Neither do I. Why don't we agree to accept an answer from a disinterested third party. "Linux does not have different letters for the drives. Linux integrates floppy, hard disk, CD-ROM ... (the common name for all of them is "devices") into the directory tree. You simply "plug" the device in a subdirectory. The default directory for mounting removable media devices is /mnt/. There you create the subdirectories for all devices (e.g. /mnt/zip for the zip-drive), /mnt/windows/ for the WINDOWS partition. For the CD-ROM the directory /cdrom is as common as /mnt/cdrom/. Any needed directories can be created with "mkdir". To access the CD-ROM drive you have to register it in the system. This happens with the command mount...." You can access the entire page at: http://www.linuxnetmag.com/en/issue3/m3mount1.html The blurb clearly states that mounting a device "simply 'plug'[s] the device in a subdirectory" that is either already created or is created when you issue the mount command. Either way, once the device is unmounted, the directory remains, in the file system, not in memory. I am not trying to be argumentative, but I also wouldn't want someone getting incorrect information either. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer
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