Mounting filesystems using systemd mount units

Mount ext4 by label

In this example we mount an ext4 filesystem with label EXT1 to /mnt/EXT1.

If you need to find out the label:

root@myserver:/# lsblk -f
NAME    FSTYPE LABEL UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
xvda
└─xvda1 xfs    /     a1e1011e-e38f-408e-878b-fed395b47ad6 /
xvdb
xvdc
└─xvdc1 ext4   EXT1  978546e8-0923-4f33-b3f8-c3a1941f0379
xvdd
#

Note that the name of the unit file is important and should be mnt-EXT1.mount

vi /etc/systemd/system/mnt-EXT1.mount

[Unit]
Before=local-fs.target

[Mount]
Where=/mnt/EXT1
What=/dev/disk/by-label/EXT1
Type=ext4
Options=defaults,noatime

[Install]
WantedBy=local-fs.target

Mount ext4 by UUID

In this example we mount the disk by its UUID. The UUID can be found using lsblk -f command (see an example in previous section)

[Unit]
Before=local-fs.target

[Mount]
Where=/mnt/EXT1
What=/dev/disk/by-uuid/978546e8-0923-4f33-b3f8-c3a1941f0379
Type=ext4
Options=defaults,noatime

[Install]
WantedBy=local-fs.target

Reload the sysetmd configuration and start the mount

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start mnt-EXT1.mount

Make it mounted after reboot

systemctl enable mnt-EXT1.mount

Create an automount option

Instead of mounting after reboot you can use an automount configuration (mount on first access):

vi /etc/systemd/system/mount-EXT1.automount

[Unit]
Description=Automount /mnt/EXT1
#Requires=network-online.target
#After=network-online.target

[Automount]
Where=/mnt/EXT1
TimeoutIdleSec=30

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Mount Unit names when mountpoint contains dashes

If your mountpoint contain the dashes you need to replace the dashes within the mount point with \x2d escape sequence

For example, you want to mount to /mnt/d08-test

cd /etc/systemd/system
vi mnt-d08\\x2dtest.mount