Mounting a file as a file system in Linux

3 steps.

1. Creating the file that can be mounted as a file system
2. Assigning the file as a block device
3. Mounting the block device to a path

Use the dd command to create an empty file of the size which you want your file system.

of – parameter specifies the name of the file

bs – size of the block (represents x no of KB. You can specify x no of MB using xM: i.e. “bs=1M”)

count – how many blocks to be present (thus the size of the file system = bs*count)

if – from which device the file content initially should be filled with.

But still the file that gets created is not a proper filesystem yet. you need to format it using some file system type. In order to do that first lets assign the file to a loop back device (the next step)

In linux a file system has to be a block device in order for it to be managed as a file system. In this particular case we use a set of defined loop back devices for our purpose. eg: /dev/loop0 up to /dev/loop8

in order to check if a particular loop back device is already being used use the command,

If its already being used you will see it mentioned in the output of the above command. Once you find a free loop back device to attach/assign the file to it

This command needs to be issued as a sudoer user.

Now lets format the loopback device we just attached.

Effectively we are creating a filesystem inside a file using the above command. I’m formatting it as ext3 file system. You may have to use sudo again.

The hard work is done. Now to just mount.

You may ommit the “-t ext3” parameter in this case since usually linux file systems are automatically detected at mount. You may have to sudo the above command.

Thats it actually. Once you are done you should clear up after you ofcourse. to do that just 2 commands

to unmount. you may need sudo again

to detach the file from the loop back device. Need sudo again.