[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#494001: `mount -o loop' runs out of loop devices

[Dmitry Maksyoma]

Just to let you know: when /etc/mtab is a symlink to /proc/mounts, loop devices
aren't freed by umount and the system may run out of loop devices (which makes
things worse than they were with old-style mtab). Apparently, it's not a bug, as
it's documented in mount(8):

If you are not so unwise as to make /etc/mtab a symbolic link to /proc/mounts
then any loop device allocated by  mount  will  be freed by umount.  You can
also free a loop device by hand, using `losetup -d', see losetup(8).

-- 
/Dmitry <ledestin at gmail.com>