Description of problem: I have a number of bind mounts I create on my system with an autofs script. Since these mounts are not interesting to view when I run a df command or such, I use the -n option in the scripts that create these mounts. I've been using these same scripts since Fedora Core 6. I was surprised to find when I ran my df command on Fedora 15 all mount autofs bind mounts were appearing. There were also many system created /dev and /sys mounts that normally should not show-up. After investigating I found the problem is that /etc/mtab is now a symbolic link to /proc/mounts. This trick is fine on a minimal install environment like a live CD or such. However, on a full install I don't expect the system to trade away functionality just to save a few kilobytes. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): $ rpm -q --whatprovides /etc/mtab util-linux-2.19.1-1.4.fc15.x86_64 How reproducible: 100% Steps to Reproduce: 1. mkdir /home2 2. mount -n -o bind /home /home2 3. df -a |grep home Actual results: $ df -a |grep /home 92891128 74916636 13256540 85% /home 92891128 74916636 13256540 85% /home2 Expected results: $ df -a |grep /home 92891128 74916636 13256540 85% /home Additional info:
*** Bug 735552 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The mtab has not been removed to save space :-) See for example: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.devel/144960 The -n functionality cannot be implemented without mtab. Note that the mount(8) command still supports mtab (and -n), so you can remove the symlink, but it does not work correctly with systemd (it does not clean up and update the file after/before boot, etc.). Sorry, WONTFIX.
OK. As a workaround I'll modify init.d script for autofs to copy /proc/mounts to /etc/mtab at start-up time. Then the mtab will be equally accurate /proc/mounts after boot, but still none of my autofs mount using the -n options will show-up in the /etc/mtab.