System Administration Guide: Basic Administration

How to Create a TMPFS File System

  1. Become superuser or assume an equivalent role.

  2. Create the directory that you want to mount as the TMPF file system, if necessary.


    # mkdir /mount-point
    

    mount-point is the directory on which the TMPFS file system is mounted.

  3. Mount the TMPFS file system.


    # mount -F tmpfs [-o size=number]  swap mount-point
    

    -o size=number

    Specifies the size limit of the TMPFS file system in Mbytes.  

    mount-point

    Specifies the directory on which the TMPFS file system is mounted. 

    To set up the system to automatically mount a TMPFS file system when it boots, see Example—Mounting a TMPFS File System at Boot Time.

  4. Verify that the TMPFS file system has been created.


    # mount -v
    

Example—Creating a TMPFS File System

The following example shows how to create, mount, and limit the size of the TMPFS file system, /export/reports, to 50 Mbytes.


# mkdir /export/reports
# chmod 777 /export/reports
# mount -F tmpfs -o size=50 swap /export/reports

Example—Mounting a TMPFS File System at Boot Time

You can set up the system to automatically mount a TMPFS file system when it boots by adding an /etc/vfstab entry. The following example shows an entry in the /etc/vfstab file that mounts /export/test as a TMPFS file system when the system boots. Since the size=number option is not specified, the size of the TMPFS file system on /export/test is limited only by the available system resources.


swap - /export/test  tmpfs   -  yes  -

For more information on the /etc/vfstab file, see Field Descriptions for the /etc/vfstab File.