Mount ISO images under Linux without burning to CD/DVD

Have you ever wanted to extract or view the contents of an ISO file without burning it to CD/DVD media? This Linux How-To will walk you though mounting the ISO file directly under Linux.


Before getting started, we suggest you Learn Linux Basics and follow these precautions.

Steps to follow

Step 1

As root, create a directory to be used for mounting the ISO. This can be named anything you wish, but should be kept relevant.

mkdir -p /mnt/iso

Step 2

Mount the ISO image to the new directory. In this example, our ISO is saved in /home/linuxlookup/ directory and named disk.iso.

mount -o loop /home/linuxlookup/disk.iso /mnt/iso

Step 3

Change to the mounted ISO directory.

cd /mnt/iso

Step 4

List the directory contents.

ls -l

Step 5

Once finished doing what you need to do, you should unmount the ISO.

umount /mnt/iso

Optional

If you're running a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, you'll have the option to mount the ISO image directly from the desktop. Right click on the ISO image and choose Mount with Archive Mounter. You'll then see an icon appear on the desktop which allows for browsing just as if it were a regular file folder. Be sure to right click and Unmount Volume once you're done.



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Comments

Submitted by MemicCube on August 19, 2010 - 6:28pm.
#1
Member since:
19 August 2010

Oh that is sweet. Works like a charm! I remember having to use ISO mounting software like MagicDisk or Alcohol when running XP. Of course you had a lot of options with those but for just mounting and reading ISO this will do just fine, and no draining of resources either.