From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Nov 12 16:32:20 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07D1C16A4CE for ; Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:32:20 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mtiwmhc12.worldnet.att.net (mtiwmhc12.worldnet.att.net [204.127.131.116]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 88F8F43D6A for ; Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:32:15 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jayobrien@worldnet.att.net) Received: from [192.168.1.6] (dsl093-180-184.sac1.dsl.speakeasy.net[66.93.180.184]) by worldnet.att.net (mtiwmhc12) with ESMTP id <2004111216321211200mhefve> (Authid: jayobrien@att.net); Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:32:12 +0000 Message-ID: <4194E58D.8060407@att.net> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 08:32:13 -0800 From: Jay O'Brien User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: FreeBSD - questions References: <419449CF.5050509@att.net> <20041112082812.Q66644@frambozen.monochrome.org> In-Reply-To: <20041112082812.Q66644@frambozen.monochrome.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: mount hides underlying files X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:32:20 -0000 Chris Hill wrote: > On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Jay O'Brien wrote: > > >>If I mkdir /test and then place files in /test, those files >>are no longer visible when I use /test as a mount point. The >>files become visible again when I unmount the device. >> >>I have read documentation explaining this phenomenon, and I >>would like to review that documentation again. Is it in the >>handbook? > > > Yes. There is a discussion of this at > > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disk-organization.html > > Also see the following page. > Chris, Thank you, that answers the basic question, with the word "replaces". That is, when a filesystem is "mounted" to a directory, it "replaces" what was there, it doesn't add to it. This is different from my experience with other operating systems, and was confusing to me. I do remember seeing a more verbose description, however, that discusses what happens to the underlying files when something is mounted over the top of their directory; I also vaguely remember something suggesting that this is a way to "hide" files from the casual observer, revealing the files by unmounting the file system that caused them to be hidden. I don't have a reason to hide files; I remember reading the discussions, and would like to read them again. Jay O'Brien