nullfs(4)

nullfs4

Null file system

Usage

To enable support for this driver, place the following line in the kernel configuration file:

options NULLFS

Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):

nullfs_load="YES"

Overview

The nullfs driver will permit the FreeBSD kernel to mount a loopback file system sub-tree.

Examples

To mount a nullfs file system:

mount_nullfs /usr/ports /home/devel/ports

It is also possible to define an entry in fstab(5) that looks similar to:

/usr/ports	/home/devel/ports	nullfs		rw	0	0

Releases

Unchanged in 3 releases since FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE.

  1. 15.0–16.0

History

The nullfs layer first appeared in 4.4BSD.

Authors

The nullfs kernel implementation was written by John Heideman.

This manual page was written by Daniel Gerzo ⟨[email protected]⟩.

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.