How to View Disk Mount Points and Underlying Volumes on Linux

Linux administrators often need to know which physical disks or logical volumes are mounted at which mount points. This article presents three common techniques for retrieving that information.

Method 1: Using df

The df command shows filesystem usage and mount points, but its output may place the mount point and the underlying volume on separate lines, making script parsing difficult.

orientalson:/home # df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2            15213032   8043668   7169364  53% /
udev                     514496       104   514392   1% /dev
/dev/mapper/vg_test-lv_test
                     511980    32840   479140   7% /home/mt
orientalson:/home #

Note that the mount point /home/mt and its volume /dev/mapper/vg_test-lv_test appear on different lines.

Method 2: Using mount -l

The mount -l command lists all mounts with their source devices on the same line, though it does not display size information.

orientalson:/home # mount -l
/dev/sda2 on / type reiserfs (rw,acl,user_xattr) []
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
/dev/mapper/vg_test-lv_test on /home/mt type reiserfs (rw) []
orientalson:/home #

This format is easier for shell scripts to parse.

Method 3: Reading /etc/mtab

The file /etc/mtab is updated by the kernel each time a filesystem is mounted, so its contents reflect current mounts. However, it may be unreliable if mounts are performed with the -n option, which prevents updates to /etc/mtab.

orientalson:/home # cat /etc/mtab
/dev/sda2 / reiserfs rw,acl,user_xattr 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
securityfs /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg_test-lv_test /home/mt reiserfs rw 0 0
orientalson:/home #

If a mount is performed with -n, the new entry will not appear in /etc/mtab:

orientalson:/home # umount /home/mt
orientalson:/home # mount -n /dev/vg_test/lv_test /home/mt
orientalson:/home # cat /etc/mtab
... (no entry for /home/mt) ...
orientalson:/home #

Each method has trade‑offs: df provides size information but may split lines; mount -l keeps source and target together but lacks size; /etc/mtab is straightforward but can be incomplete.