How to Mount ISO File on Linux

An ISO file is an archive file. It contains the complete image of a CD or DVD. Typically, most operating systems like macOS, Linux and Windows are provided as ISO image. This tutorial explains how to mount ISO file on Linux.

Mount ISO Files using the Command Line#

You can attach the ISO files at a particular mount point in the directory tree using the mount command:

Perform the following steps to mount ISO file on any Linux distribution, like Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOS.

Step 1 – Create Mount Point#

At first, you should create a mount point. You can choose any location which you want:

sudo mkdir /media/iso

Step 2 – Mount ISO File#

Use the mount command to mount the ISO file to the mount point:

sudo mount /path/filename.iso /media/iso -o loop

In above command the -o loop option tells the command to map a loop device to the specified ISO file and mount that device on the mount point.

Also you should replace /path/filename.iso with your path of your ISO file.

Step 3 – View Content#

You can view the content of an ISO file using ls command:

ls /media/iso

You can also open a file manager to view the ISO contents.

Step 4 – Unmount ISO#

If you want to unmount the ISO file, you should use unmount command followed by the directory where the image has been mounted.

sudo umount /media/iso

The unmount command will fail to unmount if the file system in use.

Mount ISO Files using Gnome#

If you are running a Linux distribution that uses Gnome as the desktop environment, you can mount an ISO file using the Gnome’s disk image mounter application.

If you system uses Gnome as the desktop environment, Gnome’s disk image mounter application allows you to mount an ISO file.

Right click on the ISO file that you want to mount. In the menu, click on the “Open With Disk Image Mounter” Option.

You should appear a device icon on the desktop after the image is mounted. You can now open it by double clicking on it and Gnome file manager will open up.

It’s also simple to unmount the ISO file, just right click on the device icon and select “Unmount”.

Conclusion#

This article explained multiple ways to mount an ISO file with command line and graphical tool Gnome.

If you have any question or feedback, leave a comment below.