UMOUNT(8)

System Administration

UMOUNT(8)

NAME
umount unmount le systems

SYNOPSIS
umount [hV] umount a [dnrv] [t vfstype] [O options] umount [dnrv] { dir | device}...

DESCRIPTION
The umount command detaches the le system(s) mentioned from the le hierarchy. A le system is specied by giving the directory where it has been mounted. Giving the special device on which the le system lives may also work, but is obsolete, mainly because it will fail in case this device was mounted on more than one directory. Note that a le system cannot be unmounted when it is busy - for example, when there are open les on it, or when some process has its working directory there, or when a swap le on it is in use. The offending process could even be umount itself - it opens libc, and libc in its turn may open for example locale les. A lazy unmount avoids this problem. Options for the umount command: V h v n r d i a Print version and exit. Print help message and exit. Verbose mode. Unmount without writing in /etc/mtab. In case unmounting fails, try to remount read-only. In case the unmounted device was a loop device, also free this loop device. Dont call the /sbin/umount.<lesystem> helper even if it exists. By default /sbin/umount.<lesystem> helper is called if one exists. All of the le systems described in /etc/mtab are unmounted. (With umount version 2.7 and later: the proc lesystem is not unmounted.)

t vfstype Indicate that the actions should only be taken on le systems of the specied type. More than one type may be specied in a comma separated list. The list of le system types can be prexed with no to specify the le system types on which no action should be taken. O options Indicate that the actions should only be taken on le systems with the specied options in /etc/fstab. More than one option type may be specied in a comma separated list. Each option can be prexed with no to specify options for which no action should be taken. f l Force unmount (in case of an unreachable NFS system). (Requires kernel 2.1.116 or later.) Lazy unmount. Detach the lesystem from the lesystem hierarchy now, and cleanup all references to the lesystem as soon as it is not busy anymore. (Requires kernel 2.4.11 or later.)

nocanonicalize Dont canonicalize paths. For more details about this option see the mount(8) man page. fake Causes everything to be done except for the actual system call; this fakes unmounting the lesystem. It can be used to remove entries from /etc/mtab that were unmounted earlier with the -n option.

util-linux

March 2010

UMOUNT(8)

System Administration

UMOUNT(8)

THE LOOP DEVICE

The umount command will free the loop device (if any) associated with the mount, in case it nds the option loop=... in /etc/mtab, or when the d option was given. Any pending loop devices can be freed using losetup -d, see losetup(8).

NOTES
The syntax of external umount helpers is: /sbin/umount.<sufx> { dir | device} [nlfvr] [t type.subtype] where the <sufx> is lesystem type or a value from "uhelper=" or "helper=" mtab option. The t option is used for lesystems with subtypes support (for example /sbin/mount.fuse -t fuse.sshfs). The uhelper= (unprivileged umount helper) is possible to use when non-root user wants to umount a mountpoint which is not dened in the /etc/fstab le (e.g devices mounted by udisk). The helper= mount option redirects all umount requests to the /sbin/umount.<helper> independently on UID.

FILES
/etc/mtab table of mounted le systems

SEE ALSO
umount(2), mount(8), losetup(8).

HISTORY
A umount command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

AVAILABILITY
The umount command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

util-linux

March 2010