EMULTIHOP
Linux / POSIXERRORNotableFilesystemHIGH confidence
Multihop Attempted
Production Risk
Indicates chained remote filesystem mounts; restructure mount points.
What this means
EMULTIHOP (errno 72) is returned when a path resolution would require traversing multiple remote file system hops, which is not permitted.
Why it happens
- 1Accessing an NFS path that itself points to another NFS mount (chained remote mounts)
- 2RFS multihop path traversal
How to reproduce
stat() on a path that chains through multiple remote filesystems.
trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
// Path /mnt/nfs1/remote_link → another NFS server
stat("/mnt/nfs1/remote_link/file", &st);
// Returns -1, errno = EMULTIHOPexpected output
stat: Multihop attempted (EMULTIHOP)
Fix
Mount the final target directly
WHEN When chained remote mounts cause EMULTIHOP
Mount the final target directly
# Instead of going through intermediate NFS mount, # mount the final NFS export directly: mount -t nfs final-server:/direct/export /mnt/target
Why this works
Mount the actual source directly to avoid chaining through intermediate remote mounts.
Sources
Official documentation ↗
Linux Programmer Manual errno(3)
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