fstab automatically creates mount points
This used to be true, and still is if you wish to use the classic mount
command.
In recent years, the entries in /etc/fstab
are mounted at boot time by systemd, which automatically creates missing mountpoints as needed, irrespective of the presence of the X-mount.mkdir
option.
It also provides the command systemd-mount
as an alternative to mount
, should you wish to mount a partition yourself without first manually creating a directory to mount over.
And here the essential parts from the documentation:
Mount units may either be configured via unit files, or via /etc/fstab
(see fstab(5) for details). Mounts listed in /etc/fstab will be converted
into native units dynamically at boot and when the configuration of the
system manager is reloaded. In general, configuring mount points through
/etc/fstab is the preferred approach. See systemd-fstab-generator(8) for
details about the conversion.
Further down you'll find this:
Where=
Takes an absolute path of a file or directory for the mount point;
in particular,the destination cannot be a symbolic link. If the
mount point does not exist at the time of mounting, it is created
as directory.