# Mounting file systems

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This page was generated from content adapted from the [AWS Developer Guide](https://github.com/awsdocs/amazon-efs-user-guide.git)
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## Mounting with EFS mount helper

* **Note**\
  Amazon EFS does not support mounting from Amazon EC2 Windows instances.
* **Note**\
  The watchdog process ensures that each mount's stunnel process is running, and stops the stunnel when the Amazon EFS file system is unmounted. If for some reason a stunnel process is terminated unexpectedly, the watchdog process restarts it.
* **Important**\
  You can enable logging for the stunnel process logs. However, enabling the stunnel logs can use up a nontrivial amount of space on your file system.
* **Note**\
  Amazon EFS file systems do not support automatic mounting on Amazon EC2 Mac instances running macOS Big Sur.
* **Note**\
  Amazon EFS file systems do not support mounting on Amazon EC2 Mac instances running macOS Big Sur at instance launch.
* **Note**\
  You can't use Amazon EFS with Microsoft Windows–based Amazon EC2 instances.
* **Note**\
  Amazon EFS file systems do not support automatic mounting using `/etc/fstab` on Amazon EC2 Mac instances running macOS Big Sur.
* **Note**\
  Before you can update the `/etc/fstab` file of your EC2 instance, make sure that you already created your Amazon EFS file system. For more information, see [Step 1: Create your Amazon EFS file system](https://github.com/kevinslin/aws-reference-notes/blob/main/services/amazon_efs/gs-step-two-create-efs-resources.md).
* **Note**\
  In some cases, your Amazon EC2 instance might need to start regardless of the status of your mounted Amazon EFS file system. In such cases, add the `nofail` option to your file system's entry in your `/etc/fstab` file.

## Additional mounting considerations

* **Note**\
  If your EC2 instance needs to start regardless of the status of your mounted EFS file system, add the `nofail` option to your file system's entry in your `/etc/fstab` file.

## Troubleshooting AMI and kernel versions

* **Note**\
  Amazon EFS does not support mounting from Amazon EC2 Windows instances.