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rclone/docs/content/commands/rclone_mount.md
Marcin Zelent 2896f51a22
docs: Fixed links to VFS FIle Caching section
2020-11-23 16:30:58 +00:00

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---
title: "rclone mount"
description: "Mount the remote as file system on a mountpoint."
slug: rclone_mount
url: /commands/rclone_mount/
# autogenerated - DO NOT EDIT, instead edit the source code in cmd/mount/ and as part of making a release run "make commanddocs"
---
# rclone mount
Mount the remote as file system on a mountpoint.
## Synopsis
rclone mount allows Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows to
mount any of Rclone's cloud storage systems as a file system with
FUSE.
First set up your remote using `rclone config`. Check it works with `rclone ls` etc.
You can either run mount in foreground mode or background (daemon) mode. Mount runs in
foreground mode by default, use the --daemon flag to specify background mode behaviour.
Background mode is only supported on Linux and OSX, you can only run mount in
foreground mode on Windows.
On Linux/macOS/FreeBSD Start the mount like this where `/path/to/local/mount`
is an **empty** **existing** directory.
rclone mount remote:path/to/files /path/to/local/mount
Or on Windows like this where `X:` is an unused drive letter
or use a path to **non-existent** directory.
rclone mount remote:path/to/files X:
rclone mount remote:path/to/files C:\path\to\nonexistent\directory
When running in background mode the user will have to stop the mount manually (specified below).
When the program ends while in foreground mode, either via Ctrl+C or receiving
a SIGINT or SIGTERM signal, the mount is automatically stopped.
The umount operation can fail, for example when the mountpoint is busy.
When that happens, it is the user's responsibility to stop the mount manually.
Stopping the mount manually:
# Linux
fusermount -u /path/to/local/mount
# OS X
umount /path/to/local/mount
## Installing on Windows
To run rclone mount on Windows, you will need to
download and install [WinFsp](http://www.secfs.net/winfsp/).
[WinFsp](https://github.com/billziss-gh/winfsp) is an open source
Windows File System Proxy which makes it easy to write user space file
systems for Windows. It provides a FUSE emulation layer which rclone
uses in combination with
[cgofuse](https://github.com/billziss-gh/cgofuse). Both of these
packages are by Bill Zissimopoulos who was very helpful during the
implementation of rclone mount for Windows.
### Windows caveats
Note that drives created as Administrator are not visible by other
accounts (including the account that was elevated as
Administrator). So if you start a Windows drive from an Administrative
Command Prompt and then try to access the same drive from Explorer
(which does not run as Administrator), you will not be able to see the
new drive.
The easiest way around this is to start the drive from a normal
command prompt. It is also possible to start a drive from the SYSTEM
account (using [the WinFsp.Launcher
infrastructure](https://github.com/billziss-gh/winfsp/wiki/WinFsp-Service-Architecture))
which creates drives accessible for everyone on the system or
alternatively using [the nssm service manager](https://nssm.cc/usage).
### Mount as a network drive
By default, rclone will mount the remote as a normal drive. However,
you can also mount it as a **Network Drive** (or **Network Share**, as
mentioned in some places)
Unlike other systems, Windows provides a different filesystem type for
network drives. Windows and other programs treat the network drives
and fixed/removable drives differently: In network drives, many I/O
operations are optimized, as the high latency and low reliability
(compared to a normal drive) of a network is expected.
Although many people prefer network shares to be mounted as normal
system drives, this might cause some issues, such as programs not
working as expected or freezes and errors while operating with the
mounted remote in Windows Explorer. If you experience any of those,
consider mounting rclone remotes as network shares, as Windows expects
normal drives to be fast and reliable, while cloud storage is far from
that. See also [Limitations](#limitations) section below for more
info
Add "--fuse-flag --VolumePrefix=\server\share" to your "mount"
command, **replacing "share" with any other name of your choice if you
are mounting more than one remote**. Otherwise, the mountpoints will
conflict and your mounted filesystems will overlap.
[Read more about drive mapping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_mapping)
## Limitations
Without the use of "--vfs-cache-mode" this can only write files
sequentially, it can only seek when reading. This means that many
applications won't work with their files on an rclone mount without
"--vfs-cache-mode writes" or "--vfs-cache-mode full". See the [File
Caching](#vfs-file-caching) section for more info.
The bucket based remotes (eg Swift, S3, Google Compute Storage, B2,
Hubic) do not support the concept of empty directories, so empty
directories will have a tendency to disappear once they fall out of
the directory cache.
Only supported on Linux, FreeBSD, OS X and Windows at the moment.
## rclone mount vs rclone sync/copy
File systems expect things to be 100% reliable, whereas cloud storage
systems are a long way from 100% reliable. The rclone sync/copy
commands cope with this with lots of retries. However rclone mount
can't use retries in the same way without making local copies of the
uploads. Look at the [file caching](#vfs-file-caching)
for solutions to make mount more reliable.
## Attribute caching
You can use the flag --attr-timeout to set the time the kernel caches
the attributes (size, modification time etc) for directory entries.
The default is "1s" which caches files just long enough to avoid
too many callbacks to rclone from the kernel.
In theory 0s should be the correct value for filesystems which can
change outside the control of the kernel. However this causes quite a
few problems such as
[rclone using too much memory](https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/2157),
[rclone not serving files to samba](https://forum.rclone.org/t/rclone-1-39-vs-1-40-mount-issue/5112)
and [excessive time listing directories](https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/2095#issuecomment-371141147).
The kernel can cache the info about a file for the time given by
"--attr-timeout". You may see corruption if the remote file changes
length during this window. It will show up as either a truncated file
or a file with garbage on the end. With "--attr-timeout 1s" this is
very unlikely but not impossible. The higher you set "--attr-timeout"
the more likely it is. The default setting of "1s" is the lowest
setting which mitigates the problems above.
If you set it higher ('10s' or '1m' say) then the kernel will call
back to rclone less often making it more efficient, however there is
more chance of the corruption issue above.
If files don't change on the remote outside of the control of rclone
then there is no chance of corruption.
This is the same as setting the attr_timeout option in mount.fuse.
## Filters
Rclone's filters can be used to select a subset of the
files to be visible in the mount.
## systemd
When running rclone mount as a systemd service, it is possible
to use Type=notify. In this case the service will enter the started state
after the mountpoint has been successfully set up.
Units having the rclone mount service specified as a requirement
will see all files and folders immediately in this mode.
## chunked reading ###
--vfs-read-chunk-size will enable reading the source objects in parts.
This can reduce the used download quota for some remotes by requesting only chunks
from the remote that are actually read at the cost of an increased number of requests.
When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit is also specified and greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size,
the chunk size for each open file will get doubled for each chunk read, until the
specified value is reached. A value of -1 will disable the limit and the chunk size will
grow indefinitely.
With --vfs-read-chunk-size 100M and --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 0 the following
parts will be downloaded: 0-100M, 100M-200M, 200M-300M, 300M-400M and so on.
When --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 500M is specified, the result would be
0-100M, 100M-300M, 300M-700M, 700M-1200M, 1200M-1700M and so on.
Chunked reading will only work with --vfs-cache-mode < full, as the file will always
be copied to the vfs cache before opening with --vfs-cache-mode full.
## VFS - Virtual File System
Mount uses rclone's VFS layer. This adapts the cloud storage objects
that rclone uses into something which looks much more like a disk
filing system.
Cloud storage objects have lots of properties which aren't like disk
files - you can't extend them or write to the middle of them, so the
VFS layer has to deal with that. Because there is no one right way of
doing this there are various options explained below.
The VFS layer also implements a directory cache - this caches info
about files and directories (but not the data) in memory.
## VFS Directory Cache
Using the `--dir-cache-time` flag, you can control how long a
directory should be considered up to date and not refreshed from the
backend. Changes made through the mount will appear immediately or
invalidate the cache.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for. (default 5m0s)
--poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes.
However, changes made directly on the cloud storage by the web
interface or a different copy of rclone will only be picked up once
the directory cache expires if the backend configured does not support
polling for changes. If the backend supports polling, changes will be
picked up within the polling interval.
You can send a `SIGHUP` signal to rclone for it to flush all
directory caches, regardless of how old they are. Assuming only one
rclone instance is running, you can reset the cache like this:
kill -SIGHUP $(pidof rclone)
If you configure rclone with a [remote control](/rc) then you can use
rclone rc to flush the whole directory cache:
rclone rc vfs/forget
Or individual files or directories:
rclone rc vfs/forget file=path/to/file dir=path/to/dir
## VFS File Buffering
The `--buffer-size` flag determines the amount of memory,
that will be used to buffer data in advance.
Each open file will try to keep the specified amount of data in memory
at all times. The buffered data is bound to one open file and won't be
shared.
This flag is a upper limit for the used memory per open file. The
buffer will only use memory for data that is downloaded but not not
yet read. If the buffer is empty, only a small amount of memory will
be used.
The maximum memory used by rclone for buffering can be up to
`--buffer-size * open files`.
## VFS File Caching
These flags control the VFS file caching options. File caching is
necessary to make the VFS layer appear compatible with a normal file
system. It can be disabled at the cost of some compatibility.
For example you'll need to enable VFS caching if you want to read and
write simultaneously to a file. See below for more details.
Note that the VFS cache is separate from the cache backend and you may
find that you need one or the other or both.
--cache-dir string Directory rclone will use for caching.
--vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off)
--vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache. (default 1h0m0s)
--vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache. (default off)
--vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects. (default 1m0s)
--vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache. (default 5s)
If run with `-vv` rclone will print the location of the file cache. The
files are stored in the user cache file area which is OS dependent but
can be controlled with `--cache-dir` or setting the appropriate
environment variable.
The cache has 4 different modes selected by `--vfs-cache-mode`.
The higher the cache mode the more compatible rclone becomes at the
cost of using disk space.
Note that files are written back to the remote only when they are
closed and if they haven't been accessed for --vfs-write-back
second. If rclone is quit or dies with files that haven't been
uploaded, these will be uploaded next time rclone is run with the same
flags.
If using --vfs-cache-max-size note that the cache may exceed this size
for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every
--vfs-cache-poll-interval. Secondly because open files cannot be
evicted from the cache.
### --vfs-cache-mode off
In this mode (the default) the cache will read directly from the remote and write
directly to the remote without caching anything on disk.
This will mean some operations are not possible
* Files can't be opened for both read AND write
* Files opened for write can't be seeked
* Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
* Files open for read with O_TRUNC will be opened write only
* Files open for write only will behave as if O_TRUNC was supplied
* Open modes O_APPEND, O_TRUNC are ignored
* If an upload fails it can't be retried
### --vfs-cache-mode minimal
This is very similar to "off" except that files opened for read AND
write will be buffered to disk. This means that files opened for
write will be a lot more compatible, but uses the minimal disk space.
These operations are not possible
* Files opened for write only can't be seeked
* Existing files opened for write must have O_TRUNC set
* Files opened for write only will ignore O_APPEND, O_TRUNC
* If an upload fails it can't be retried
### --vfs-cache-mode writes
In this mode files opened for read only are still read directly from
the remote, write only and read/write files are buffered to disk
first.
This mode should support all normal file system operations.
If an upload fails it will be retried at exponentially increasing
intervals up to 1 minute.
### --vfs-cache-mode full
In this mode all reads and writes are buffered to and from disk. When
data is read from the remote this is buffered to disk as well.
In this mode the files in the cache will be sparse files and rclone
will keep track of which bits of the files it has dowloaded.
So if an application only reads the starts of each file, then rclone
will only buffer the start of the file. These files will appear to be
their full size in the cache, but they will be sparse files with only
the data that has been downloaded present in them.
This mode should support all normal file system operations and is
otherwise identical to --vfs-cache-mode writes.
When reading a file rclone will read --buffer-size plus
--vfs-read-ahead bytes ahead. The --buffer-size is buffered in memory
whereas the --vfs-read-ahead is buffered on disk.
When using this mode it is recommended that --buffer-size is not set
too big and --vfs-read-ahead is set large if required.
## VFS Performance
These flags may be used to enable/disable features of the VFS for
performance or other reasons.
In particular S3 and Swift benefit hugely from the --no-modtime flag
(or use --use-server-modtime for a slightly different effect) as each
read of the modification time takes a transaction.
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download.
--no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up).
--no-seek Don't allow seeking in files.
--read-only Mount read-only.
When rclone reads files from a remote it reads them in chunks. This
means that rather than requesting the whole file rclone reads the
chunk specified. This is advantageous because some cloud providers
account for reads being all the data requested, not all the data
delivered.
Rclone will keep doubling the chunk size requested starting at
--vfs-read-chunk-size with a maximum of --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit
unless it is set to "off" in which case there will be no limit.
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks. (default 128M)
--vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix Max chunk doubling size (default "off")
Sometimes rclone is delivered reads or writes out of order. Rather
than seeking rclone will wait a short time for the in sequence read or
write to come in. These flags only come into effect when not using an
on disk cache file.
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking. (default 20ms)
--vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error. (default 1s)
## VFS Case Sensitivity
Linux file systems are case-sensitive: two files can differ only
by case, and the exact case must be used when opening a file.
File systems in modern Windows are case-insensitive but case-preserving:
although existing files can be opened using any case, the exact case used
to create the file is preserved and available for programs to query.
It is not allowed for two files in the same directory to differ only by case.
Usually file systems on macOS are case-insensitive. It is possible to make macOS
file systems case-sensitive but that is not the default
The "--vfs-case-insensitive" mount flag controls how rclone handles these
two cases. If its value is "false", rclone passes file names to the mounted
file system as-is. If the flag is "true" (or appears without a value on
command line), rclone may perform a "fixup" as explained below.
The user may specify a file name to open/delete/rename/etc with a case
different than what is stored on mounted file system. If an argument refers
to an existing file with exactly the same name, then the case of the existing
file on the disk will be used. However, if a file name with exactly the same
name is not found but a name differing only by case exists, rclone will
transparently fixup the name. This fixup happens only when an existing file
is requested. Case sensitivity of file names created anew by rclone is
controlled by an underlying mounted file system.
Note that case sensitivity of the operating system running rclone (the target)
may differ from case sensitivity of a file system mounted by rclone (the source).
The flag controls whether "fixup" is performed to satisfy the target.
If the flag is not provided on the command line, then its default value depends
on the operating system where rclone runs: "true" on Windows and macOS, "false"
otherwise. If the flag is provided without a value, then it is "true".
```
rclone mount remote:path /path/to/mountpoint [flags]
```
## Options
```
--allow-non-empty Allow mounting over a non-empty directory (not Windows).
--allow-other Allow access to other users.
--allow-root Allow access to root user.
--async-read Use asynchronous reads. (default true)
--attr-timeout duration Time for which file/directory attributes are cached. (default 1s)
--daemon Run mount as a daemon (background mode).
--daemon-timeout duration Time limit for rclone to respond to kernel (not supported by all OSes).
--debug-fuse Debug the FUSE internals - needs -v.
--default-permissions Makes kernel enforce access control based on the file mode.
--dir-cache-time duration Time to cache directory entries for. (default 5m0s)
--dir-perms FileMode Directory permissions (default 0777)
--file-perms FileMode File permissions (default 0666)
--fuse-flag stringArray Flags or arguments to be passed direct to libfuse/WinFsp. Repeat if required.
--gid uint32 Override the gid field set by the filesystem. (default 1000)
-h, --help help for mount
--max-read-ahead SizeSuffix The number of bytes that can be prefetched for sequential reads. (default 128k)
--no-checksum Don't compare checksums on up/download.
--no-modtime Don't read/write the modification time (can speed things up).
--no-seek Don't allow seeking in files.
-o, --option stringArray Option for libfuse/WinFsp. Repeat if required.
--poll-interval duration Time to wait between polling for changes. Must be smaller than dir-cache-time. Only on supported remotes. Set to 0 to disable. (default 1m0s)
--read-only Mount read-only.
--uid uint32 Override the uid field set by the filesystem. (default 1000)
--umask int Override the permission bits set by the filesystem.
--vfs-cache-max-age duration Max age of objects in the cache. (default 1h0m0s)
--vfs-cache-max-size SizeSuffix Max total size of objects in the cache. (default off)
--vfs-cache-mode CacheMode Cache mode off|minimal|writes|full (default off)
--vfs-cache-poll-interval duration Interval to poll the cache for stale objects. (default 1m0s)
--vfs-case-insensitive If a file name not found, find a case insensitive match.
--vfs-read-ahead SizeSuffix Extra read ahead over --buffer-size when using cache-mode full.
--vfs-read-chunk-size SizeSuffix Read the source objects in chunks. (default 128M)
--vfs-read-chunk-size-limit SizeSuffix If greater than --vfs-read-chunk-size, double the chunk size after each chunk read, until the limit is reached. 'off' is unlimited. (default off)
--vfs-read-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence read before seeking. (default 20ms)
--vfs-write-back duration Time to writeback files after last use when using cache. (default 5s)
--vfs-write-wait duration Time to wait for in-sequence write before giving error. (default 1s)
--volname string Set the volume name (not supported by all OSes).
--write-back-cache Makes kernel buffer writes before sending them to rclone. Without this, writethrough caching is used.
```
See the [global flags page](/flags/) for global options not listed here.
## SEE ALSO
* [rclone](/commands/rclone/) - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.
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