Chapter 6. UML Filesystem Management

In this chapter, we will talk about filesystems from the perspectives of both the UML instance and the host. There are a few different ways to store files on the host so they can be mounted as a filesystem inside a UML instance. The one we've already seen, and the most popular, is to use a block device within a host file. The others involve mounting a host directory hierarchy inside the instance. This has the advantage that the UML files are visible on the host and can be managed from there. The usefulness of this becomes obvious when you have a UML user who lost the root password and needs it reset. It's much easier to do that when the UML instance's /etc/passwd is a normal file on the host than when the /etc/passwd is hidden inside a filesystem image in a large host file.