[root tip] systemd mount unit samples

Contributions Tutorials
#1

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Example mount units for systemd

The examples here are a supplement to the guide on systemd mount units

Unit file names

Mount unit

  • Mount units must be named the mount point with the extension of .mount so if you use a mountpoint named /data/backup the unit file must be named data-backup.mount

Automount unit

  • Automount units use the name of the mount unit with an extension of .automount so the automount unit for the example data-backup.mount must be named data-backup.automount.

:warning:

Content of a mount unit

Depending on the Type, the What is different and so is the Options

What do you want to mount (disk, server, share)?
Where do you want it to mount (a path on your system)?
Which Type is your mount (filesystem, cifs, nfs)?
What Options should the mount use(rw, auto, netdev)?

Example

If you want to mount a Samba share named video provided by a local NAS named server

  • What is the name of server and the share e.g. //server/video
  • Where is the path where you can browse the data provided by the share e.g. /data/smb/video
  • Type will be cifs because that is what this type of connection is called
  • Options will instruct the system it is a net device _netdev, it should be possible to read and write rw, and connect using a specific workgroup, username and password.

Sample mount units

SMB network share

The package smbclient is enough. The credentials can be stored in location readable only by root. Replace the $VARIABLES with the values for your system

NOTE: According to the archlinux wiki the uid and gid can cause I/O errors.

Warning: Using uid and/or gid as mount options may cause I/O errors, it is recommended to set/check correct File permissions and attributes instead. - Samba - ArchWiki

More information on Samba can be found on the archlinux wiki

mount unit

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-smb-video.mount

## sample smb share mount unit
[Unit]
Description=NAS SMB video share
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Mount]
What=//server/video
Where=/data/smb/video    # unit file name data-smb-video.mount
Type=cifs
Options=_netdev,iocharset=utf8,rw,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777,user=$SMBUSER,password=$SMBPASS,workgroup=$WORKGROUP
TimeoutSec=30

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

automount unit

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-smb-video.automount

## sample automount unit for smb share
[Unit]
Description=Automount video share using SMB
ConditionPathExists=/data/smb/video
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Automount]
Where=/data/smb/video    # unit file name data-smb-video.automount
TimeoutIdleSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Disk PARTITION

[Type] and [Options] are optional for disk devices.
To reduce unnecessary writings to SSD devices the noatime option is recommended.

mount unit

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-build.mount

## sample partition mount unit
[Unit]
Description=Mount build partition

[Mount]
What=/dev/disk/by-uuid/$UUID
Where=/data/build    # unit file name  data-build.mount
Type=ext4
Options=rw,noatime

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

automount unit

cat /etc/systemd/system/data-backup.automount

## sample automount unit for partition
[Unit]
Description=Automount backup partition
ConditionPathExists=/data/backup     # unit file name data-backup.automount

[Automount]
Where=/data/backup
TimeoutIdleSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

NFS network share

mount unit

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-nfs-video.mount

## sample nfs mount unit
[Unit]
Description=Mount NAS Video share using NFS
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Mount]
What=diskstation:/volume1/video
Where=/data/nfs/video    # unit file name  data-nfs-video.mount
Type=nfs
Options=_netdev,auto

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

automount unit

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-nfs-video.automount

## sample automount unit for nfs share
[Unit]
Description=Automount video share usuing NFS
ConditionPathExists=/data/nfs/video
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Automount]
Where=/data/nfs/video    # unit file name data-nfs-video.automount
TimeoutIdleSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

MOUNT unit for FTP server

Using curlftpfs. It is also possible to store the username and password in a safe location readable only by root.

You can put the user and password in a .netrc file in the home directory of the user that executes CurlFtpFS. It can have 600 permission. It’s still clear text but at least is not accessible by all.
The format is:

machine ftp.host.com  
login myuser  
password mypass

See curlftpfs on archlinux wiki. Replace the $VARIABLES with the actual values for your use case.

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-ftp-server.mount

## sample ftp mount unit - curlftpfs
[Unit]
Description=Mount FTP server (ftp.server.tld) using curlftpfs
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Mount]
What=curlftpfs#ftp.server.tld
Where=/data/ftp/server    # unit file name  data-ftp-server.mount
Type=fuse
Options=rw,nosuid,uid=$UID,gid=$GID,allow_other,user=$FTPUSER:$FTPPASS

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

automount unit

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-ftp-server.automount

## sample automount unit for ftp server
[Unit]
Description=Automount ftp server ftp.server.tld
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Automount]
Where=/data/ftp/server    # unit file name data-ftp-server.automount
TimeoutIdleSec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

WEBDAV

See the Arch wiki on webdav. Install davfs2 from the repo

Edit the file /etc/davfs2/secrects and append your webdav service and credentials

http(s)://address:<port>/path    davusername    "davpassword"

Or create a user file at ~/.davfs2/secrets for user specific mounts

mount unit

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-webdav-service.mount

## sample mount unit for webdav service
[Unit]
## sample webdav mount unit
Description=Mount WebDAV Service on server https://host:port/path
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Mount]
What=http(s)://address:<port>/path
Where=/data/webdav/service    # unit file name data-webdav-service.mount
Options=rw,_netdev
Type=davfs
TimeoutSec=15

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target

automount unit

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/data-webdav-service.automount

## sample automount unit for webdav service
[Unit]
Description=Mount WebDAV Service
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Automount]
Where=/data/webdav/service     # unit file name data-webdav-service.automount
TimeoutIdleSec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=remote-fs.target
WantedBy=multi-user.target
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#3

Thank you for your great tutorial, it helped me a lot to learn about systemd. Never used it before, always made changes to fstab.

Here

the path has to be:
/etc/systemd/system/data-webdav-service.automount

I used your guide to setup a webdav-mount and webdav-automount unit (nextcloud). Everything worked fine, except at shutdown I got:

[Failed] Unmounting /run/user/1000

and at reboot some

[Skip] Ordering cycle found, skipping ∆∆xtcluod (/media/cloud)

After reboot the automount unit was disabled.

Checked with:
sudo systemd-analyze verify media-cloud.automount and sudo systemd-analyze verify media-cloud.mount
and got ordering cycle messages.

So I commented out the lines with network-online.target in both units, reloaded daemon and enable automount. After that, everything went fine, no errors, automount enabled after reboot.

Do I need the After=network-online.target & Wants=network-online.target lines and if so, how to avoid the ordering cycle?

#4

To enhance the info, here is an example of a bind-mount which can become very useful:

boot.mount 
[Unit]
Conflicts=umount.target

[Mount]
Where=/boot
What=/efi/Manjaro
Type=none
Options=bind

[Install]
WantedBy=local-fs.target

This assumes you have your ESP mounted on /efi and all your files that normally are under /boot have been installed under /efi/Manjaro :wink:

GRUBENV error when using BTRFS
#5

Would you be able to provide an example of mounting a LUKS encrypted drive using systemd? I can mount the drive once I’ve run cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda1 cryptdata, but I’m not sure how to specify this within a systemd mount unit.

#6

@Feakster
You don’t mount encrypted volumes, but as the command says you “Open” them.
Therefore you need to specify it in /etc/crypttab.initramfs.
That extension will place it in the ramdisk only, you can use the plain (without extension initramfs) if you only want it in your regular system.

Afterwards you can mount the volume as usual.
Eg. in your example that would become /dev/mapper/cryptdata as drive/partition name.

Either the above or create a service unit that opens the encrypted volume :wink:

You may also read systemd-cryptsetup(8) as a related documentation.

1 Like