How to regenerate /etc/mtab file on Linux

Last updated on June 9, 2020 by Dan Nanni

Question: I accidentally messed up (or removed) /etc/mtab file. How can I recreate the original /etc/mtab file which reflects the current mount information?

In case /etc/mtab file is removed or corrupted by accident, and you want to recover the original /etc/mtab file, you can use /proc/mounts, which shows an up-to-date list of all mounts currently used by Linux system.

To reset /etc/mtab file to reflect the current mount information, run the following command.

$ sudo sh -c 'grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab'

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