mount

Activates a VOB at its VOB tag directory

Applicability

Product

Command type

ClearCase®

cleartool subcommand

ClearCase Remote Client

rcleartool subcommand

Platform

UNIX

Linux

Windows

Synopsis

  • ClearCase: UNIX and Linux only--Mount a single VOB:
    mount [ -opt/ions mount-options ] vob-tag
  • ClearCase: Windows only--Mount a single VOB:
    mount [ -per/sistent ] [ -opt/ions mount-options ] vob-tag
  • ClearCase: UNIX and Linux only--Mount all public VOBs:
    mount -a/ll
  • ClearCase: Windows only--Mount all public VOBs:
    mount [ -per/sistent ] -a/ll
  • ClearCase Remote Client: automatic views only--Mount VOBs:
    mount [ -tag view-tag ] vob-tag ...

Description

Prerequisite: The VOB being activated must already have a VOB tag for your host's network region in the ClearCase registry. See the mkvob and mktag reference pages.

The mount command activates one or more VOBs on the local host. The mount command mounts a VOB as a file system of type MVFS (multiversion file system) and is inapplicable to non-MVFS installations.

Mounting all VOBs

The mount -all command mounts all public VOBs listed for your host's network region in the VOB registry. (It does not mount private VOBs or VOBs whose tag entries include the mount option noauto.) On UNIX and Linux systems, this command executes at ClearCase startup time; see the init_ccase reference page.

UNIX and Linux: Mounting of public and private VOBs

A public VOB can be activated by any user; if the mount-over directory does not already exist, it is created.

A private VOB can be activated only by its owner. The root user or VOB owner can use the standard mount(1M) command to mount a private VOB; other users cannot mount it. The mount-over directory must already exist and be owned by the VOB owner.

Windows: Mounting of public and private VOBs

A public VOB can be activated with the following command:

cmd-context  mount -all

Usually, the system administrator automates this command for ClearCase users at login time.

Any user can mount any VOB, public or private. The private designation means only that a VOB must be mounted separately, by name.

VOB tags and the VOB storage registry

You reference a VOB by its VOB tag (the full pathname of its mount point), not by its storage area pathname. The mount command uses the VOB tag to retrieve all necessary information from the ClearCase registry: pathname of VOB storage area, pathname of mount point, and mount options.

Options and arguments

Making a mount persistent

Default
The VOB does not stay mounted across reboots.
-per/sistent
The VOB is mounted after a reboot.

Specifying mount options

Default
Mounts each VOB using the -options field in its VOB tag registry file.
-opt/ions mount-options
Ignores the -options field in the VOB tag registry file entry and uses the specified set of options, which can include these:

All platforms: ro, rw, soft, hard, intr, nointr, timeo, retrans, noauto, nodnlc, noac, acdirmin, acdirmax, acregmin, acregmax, actimeo

UNIX and Linux: nodev, nosuid, suid

Windows: suid (applicable only for a tag used to mount a VOB on UNIX or Linux), poolmap

Notes for UNIX users:
  • See the appropriate operating system reference page (for example, mount(1M)) for a description of these options. Enclose this argument in quotes if it contains white space.
  • If you do not specify a timeout or retransmission option, default values are used:
    • timeo=5 (seconds)
    • retrans=7 (retries)
  • By default, a VOB is mounted in nointr mode. This means that operations on MVFS files (for example, open(2)) cannot be interrupted by typing the INTR character (typically, Ctrl+C ). To enable keyboard interrupts of such operations, use the intr mount option.
Note for Windows users: Use commas to separate multiple options, not commas and white space. Options that take numeric arguments take the form option=n. Enclose the entire option list in quotes if it contains white space.

ro/rw

Read-only or read-write. VOBs are mounted rw by default.

soft/hard

Soft mount operations timeout and return an error if the server does not respond; hard mount operations (the default) will block until successful completion, or until interrupted (see also intr).

intr/nointr

By default, a VOB is mounted in no-interrupt mode. This means that operations on MVFS files cannot be interrupted by typing the interrupt character (typically, Ctrl+C or Ctrl+BREAK). To enable keyboard interrupts of such operations, use the intr mount option.

timeo/retrans

If you do not specify a timeout or retransmission option, default values are used: timeo=5 (seconds); retrans=7 (retries).

noauto

Prevents a public VOB from being mounted by a cleartool mount -all command.

nodnlc

Turns off the MVFS name cache. See also mvfscache.

noac

Turns off the MVFS attribute cache. See also mvfscache.

acdirmin/ acdirmax

Set minimum and maximum timeout values for directory name lookups in the MVFS attribute cache. See also mvfscache.

acregmin/ acregmax

Set minimum and maximum timeout values for file name lookups in the MVFS attribute cache. See also mvfscache.

actimeo

Sets a single cache timeout value for all four parameters acdirmin, acdirmax, acregmin, and acregmax. Setting one of these specific values overrides the value in actimeo.

poolmap

Supports remote storage pools on UNIX and Linux VOB hosts. For details, see the DevOps Code ClearCase Administrator's Guide.

Note: The timeout values specified in several of these mount options affect the view's metadata latency (the delay before changes to VOB metadata become visible in a dynamic view other than the one in which the changes were made). Longer timeout values improve performance at the expense of greater latency. Shorter timeout values decrease latency, but also have an impact on view performance because the caches must be refreshed more frequently.

Specifying the automatic view

Default
None.
view-tag
Specifies the automatic view for which VOBs are to be mounted. It is unnecessary to mount VOBs explicitly for automatic views using this command because the act of browsing a VOB in an automatic view mounts that VOB. A VOB that is mounted for one automatic view is not mounted for other automatic views on the same host: you must mount the VOB for each automatic view that needs to access it.

Specifying the VOBs

Default
None.
vob-tag
Mounts the VOB with this vob-tag, which must be specified exactly as it appears in the vob_tag registry file. Use lsvob to list VOBs.
-a/ll
(Mutually exclusive with -options) Mounts all public VOBs listed for your host's network region in the VOB registry, using the mount options in their VOB tag registry entries. (Including the mount option noauto in a VOB tag's registry entry prevents the VOB from being mounted by mount -all.)

Examples

The UNIX system and Linux examples in this section are written for use in csh. If you use another shell, you might need to use different quoting and escaping conventions.

The Windows examples that include wildcards or quoting are written for use in cleartool interactive mode. If you use cleartool single-command mode, you might need to change the wildcards and quoting to make your command interpreter process the command appropriately.

In cleartool single-command mode, cmd-context represents the UNIX system and Linux shells or Windows command interpreter prompt, followed by the cleartool command. In cleartool interactive mode, cmd-context represents the interactive cleartool prompt.

  • Mount the VOB storage directory that is registered with VOB tag \vob_Rel4.

    cmd-context  mount \vob_Rel4

  • Mount all VOBs registered with public VOB tags.

    cmd-context  mount -all