archivemount

Mount an archive to a specific mountpoint

$ archivemount [path/to/archive] [path/to/mount_point]

archivemount [-h | -V] [-f] [-o opts] <archive> <mountpoint>

-h, --help
    Print usage information and exit

-V, --version
    Print version information and exit

-f, --foreground
    Run in foreground; do not daemonize

-o, --options opts
    Comma-separated list of mount options (see below)

opts: ro
    Mount read-only (default)

opts: rw
    Mount read-write (experimental, format-limited)

opts: fmt=FORMAT
    Force archive format (e.g., tar, zip, cpio, auto=default)

opts: verbose
    Enable verbose logging

opts: debug
    Enable debug logging

opts: non-empty
    Allow mount over non-empty directory

opts: standard FUSE options
    e.g., uid=, gid=, allow_other, etc. (passed to FUSE)

archivemount is a FUSE-based utility that allows users to mount supported archive files—such as tar, zip, rar, 7z, and others handled by libarchive—directly as filesystems. Instead of extracting files to disk, it presents the archive's contents as a navigable directory structure at a specified mountpoint.

This enables seamless access to archive contents using standard tools like ls, cat, or cp, without consuming extra disk space or time for extraction. By default, mounts are read-only (ro), ensuring safety, though experimental read-write (rw) mode is available for select formats like tar and zip, allowing modifications that update the archive in-place.

Key benefits include efficient handling of large archives, on-the-fly access for backups or distribution files, and integration with FUSE for user-space filesystems. It auto-detects archive formats but supports forcing specific ones. Logging options aid debugging, and it respects standard FUSE mount options for fine-tuned behavior.

Ideal for sysadmins, developers, or anyone needing quick archive inspection without full unpack, archivemount bridges traditional archiving with modern filesystem semantics.

Read-write mode is experimental and limited to tar/zip/cpio; may corrupt archives. Requires FUSE kernel module and libarchive. Mounting untrusted archives risks security exploits. Not all formats support all features; test thoroughly. Umount with fusermount -u.

Auto-detects: tar, pax, cpio, zip, gzip, bzip2, lzma, xz, lzop, rar, 7z, ar, cab, mtree; others via libarchive plugins.
Read-write: tar, zip, cpio (limited).

archivemount -o ro archive.tar.gz /mnt
ls /mnt # browse contents
fusermount -u /mnt # unmount

Developed by Jean-Michel Richer in 2009 as a FUSE utility leveraging libarchive. Maintained sporadically; version 0.9.1 (2013) added RAR/7z support. Integrated into various distros; focuses on stability over new features.

fusermount(1), mount(8), umount(8), tar(1), unzip(1), libarchive(3)