How do I mount a folder from another partition?

Is there a command to mount a folder from one partition to my main partition?

Example of what I'd like to do, which obviously doesn't work:

mount /media/tc1/folder /home/dvad/home

If not by using a command, is there another way I can do this?

2 Answers

Yes but before I go that far, couldn't you just symlink?

ln -s /media/tc1/folder ~/home

This link is just a file that is interpreted. It is automatically permanent (until you delete the file).

Failing that you can use mount as you described but the syntax is slightly different:

mount --bind /media/tc1/folder /home/dvad/home

This is not permanent at all, and will be nuked by a restart. If you want it to persist, you'll need something in your /etc/fstab like this:

/media/tc1/folder /home/dvad/home none bind

If you're trying a mount and it's not working, you should make sure that the block-level device is mounted. You can't directly mount a subdirectory of a partition without first mounting the partition.

An alternative to mount:

bindfs -n /media/tc1/folder /home/dvad/home

Requires sudo apt-install bindfs.

Like with mount, this will be a (non-permanent) actual mount point, i.e. for instance version-control systems will not only track it as a symbolic reference, but see the files “in there”. However like for ln -s, you do not need superuser permissions for bindfs as you would for mount.

Unmount with fusermount -u /home/dvad/home (or by restarting).