[gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Chris Stankevitz]

Hello,

Which package(s) do I need that allow:

1. A USB drive is inserted

2. The drive is mounted in some location automatically (e.g. /media/usbstick)

3. (2) happens even when the drive is an NTFS or FAT32 drive.

4. (1)-(3) happens even if I am not running a "GUI"

5. (1)-(3) happens even if I am running the "GUI" called "TWM"

6. (1)-(3) happens even if I am running the "GUI" called "xfce4"

7. (1)-(3) happens even if I am running the "GUI" called "gnome"

8. (1)-(3) happens even if I am running the "GUI" called "kde"

9. Bonus: if a GUI is runing, an icon appears on the desktop.  This
icon can be used to umount or to quickly navigate to the mounted
directory.

10. Bonus: if you use words like dbus/policykit/consolekit/COM/DDE/OLE
that allow me to get a technical understanding of the mechanisms in
play.

Thank you,

Chris

Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Alan McKinnon]

On 06/08/2014 03:18, Chris Stankevitz wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Which package(s) do I need that allow:
> 
> 1. A USB drive is inserted
> 
> 2. The drive is mounted in some location automatically (e.g. /media/usbstick)
> 
> 3. (2) happens even when the drive is an NTFS or FAT32 drive.
> 
> 4. (1)-(3) happens even if I am not running a "GUI"
> 
> 5. (1)-(3) happens even if I am running the "GUI" called "TWM"
> 
> 6. (1)-(3) happens even if I am running the "GUI" called "xfce4"
> 
> 7. (1)-(3) happens even if I am running the "GUI" called "gnome"
> 
> 8. (1)-(3) happens even if I am running the "GUI" called "kde"
> 
> 9. Bonus: if a GUI is runing, an icon appears on the desktop.  This
> icon can be used to umount or to quickly navigate to the mounted
> directory.
> 
> 10. Bonus: if you use words like dbus/policykit/consolekit/COM/DDE/OLE
> that allow me to get a technical understanding of the mechanisms in
> play.


udisks

Google knows enough about it to lead you to the nirvana state of
increased understanding.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[thegeezer]

>
> udisks
+1
>
> Google knows enough about it to lead you to the nirvana state of
> increased understanding.
>
+1

very loosely:
udisks needs polkit to check the current user is authorised to mount
internal drives or usb drives (this threw me at first as there are two
rules you need to assign)

udisks uses dbus for the notification of disconnect / connect to/from
the desktop environment. 

icon on the desktop depends on the desktop you have - but this should be
automagic

hth

Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Wang Xuerui]

2014-08-06 9:18 GMT+08:00 Chris Stankevitz <chrisstankevitz@gmail.com>:
> [snip]
> 10. Bonus: if you use words like COM/DDE/OLE

Just a side note... These 3 things don't play well with a Linux
ecosystem, as you might know. They're M$ technologies after all (-:

(actually they just don't exist in a native Linux install without
Wine, but AFAIK Wine doesn't participate in the automounting anyway)

Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Chris Stankevitz]

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:59 PM, Wang Xuerui <idontknw.wang@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a side note... These 3 things don't play well with a Linux
> ecosystem, as you might know. They're M$ technologies after all (-:

Hi Wang,

As you suspected, I knew the solution was not going to involve
DDE/OLE.  I included them to encourage answers that explain how things
work.

Chris

Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Walter Dnes]

On Tue, Aug 05, 2014 at 06:18:44PM -0700, Chris Stankevitz wrote
> Hello,
> 
> Which package(s) do I need that allow:
> 
> 1. A USB drive is inserted
> 
> 2. The drive is mounted in some location automatically (e.g. /media/usbstick)
> 
> 3. (2) happens even when the drive is an NTFS or FAT32 drive.
> 
> 4. (1)-(3) happens even if I am not running a "GUI"

  It can be done with udev rules.  See webpage
http://www.tuxradar.com/answers/526#null  The suggested udev rule is...

SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi", KERNEL=="sd[a-h][0-9]",
SYMLINK:="removable%n", RUN+="/usr/bin/pmount /dev/removable%n"

  It sets up devices /dev/removable1, /dev/removable2, etc, depending on
the number of partitions on the USB device.  The regular user should
able to unmount the device with the "pumount" command.  I'm not certain,
but I believe that regular users need to be members of group "plugdev"
to be able to access and unmount the USB drive.

  Because this is done independantly of the GUI, I don't think it'll set
up an icon automatically.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 6 Aug 2014 11:09:32 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote:

>   It can be done with udev rules.  See webpage
> http://www.tuxradar.com/answers/526#null  The suggested udev rule is...

It can also be done with sys-apps/uam, which takes care of the udev
rules, but I think Alan's suggestion of udisks is better.

Ah, I've just noticed the URL you linked to, it does have some excellent
advice :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

I distinctly remember forgetting that.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Francisco Ares]

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2014-08-06 12:09 GMT-03:00 Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>:

> On Tue, Aug 05, 2014 at 06:18:44PM -0700, Chris Stankevitz wrote
> > Hello,
> >
> > Which package(s) do I need that allow:
> >
> > 1. A USB drive is inserted
> >
> > 2. The drive is mounted in some location automatically (e.g.
> /media/usbstick)
> >
> > 3. (2) happens even when the drive is an NTFS or FAT32 drive.
> >
> > 4. (1)-(3) happens even if I am not running a "GUI"
>
>   It can be done with udev rules.  See webpage
> http://www.tuxradar.com/answers/526#null  The suggested udev rule is...
>
> SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi", KERNEL=="sd[a-h][0-9]",
> SYMLINK:="removable%n", RUN+="/usr/bin/pmount /dev/removable%n"
>
>   It sets up devices /dev/removable1, /dev/removable2, etc, depending on
> the number of partitions on the USB device.  The regular user should
> able to unmount the device with the "pumount" command.  I'm not certain,
> but I believe that regular users need to be members of group "plugdev"
> to be able to access and unmount the USB drive.
>
>   Because this is done independantly of the GUI, I don't think it'll set
> up an icon automatically.
>
> --
> Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
>
>
Hi,

I have found some interesting places, this one the most of all:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-350769-highlight-udev.html

Best regards,
Francisco

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Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Chris Stankevitz]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 8:09 AM, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
>   It can be done with udev rules.  See webpage
> http://www.tuxradar.com/answers/526#null  The suggested udev rule is...

Walter,

Thank you for the link, that is great info!

>   Because this is done independantly of the GUI, I don't think it'll set
> up an icon automatically.

Yes I agree.  I am still curious what is the mechanism that causes
icons to "appear" on the "desktop" of popular GUIs.  I suspect the
answer involves the magic of
policykit/consolekit/dbus/hal/gvfs/gnome-vfs/fuse/hotplug/udisks/etc.

Thank you,

Chris

Re: [gentoo-user] Automounting USB drives

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 6 Aug 2014 11:29:12 -0700, Chris Stankevitz wrote:

> >   It can be done with udev rules.  See webpage
> > http://www.tuxradar.com/answers/526#null  The suggested udev rule
> > is...  
> Thank you for the link, that is great info!

I'm pleased you find it useful. I actually wrote that but wasn't aware it
was on the web site. however, things move quite quickly in udevland and
that was written in January 2008 - parts of it may be more historical than
topical.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Old hitchhikers never die-they just throw in the towel.

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[gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[luis jure]

hello list,

i'm old-fashioned and i never cared for this automount thing, but now i
have two pen drives and two usb hard disks that i have to mount and umount
all the time, and doing it by hand every time is beginning to be very
annoying...

i see that distributions like ubuntu and others have this feature by
default: you plug in a pen drive and it creates a mount point under /media
and mounts the device there. but i have no idea to get something like that
working on my gentoo machine. i searched the web, but the documents i
found on the subject are somewhat contradictory and all of them too old
for comfort. 

any hints about a standard "gentoo way" to achieve this?

by the way, i use xfce, so i can't use tools specific for kde or gnome, if
they exist.

best,

lj

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Dale]

luis jure wrote:
>
> hello list,
>
> i'm old-fashioned and i never cared for this automount thing, but now i
> have two pen drives and two usb hard disks that i have to mount and umount
> all the time, and doing it by hand every time is beginning to be very
> annoying...
>
> i see that distributions like ubuntu and others have this feature by
> default: you plug in a pen drive and it creates a mount point under /media
> and mounts the device there. but i have no idea to get something like that
> working on my gentoo machine. i searched the web, but the documents i
> found on the subject are somewhat contradictory and all of them too old
> for comfort.
>
> any hints about a standard "gentoo way" to achieve this?
>
> by the way, i use xfce, so i can't use tools specific for kde or gnome, if
> they exist.
>
> best,
>
> lj
>
>    

I know what xfce is but not have no experience with it.  Would this help?

[I] sys-fs/udisks
      Available versions:  1.0.1-r1!t{tbz2} 1.0.2!t{tbz2} 
{bash-completion debug doc nls remote-access}
      Installed versions:  1.0.2!t{tbz2}(18:36:11 02/25/11)(nls 
-bash-completion -debug -doc -remote-access)
      Homepage:            http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/udisks
      Description:         Daemon providing interfaces to work with 
storage devices

* xfce-extra/xfce4-mount-plugin
      Available versions:  0.5.5 {debug}
      Homepage:            http://www.xfce.org/
      Description:         Mount plugin for the Xfce panel

That last one should put you on the right path for sure.

Hope the helps.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[luis jure]

on 2011-02-25 at 19:42 Dale wrote:


>* xfce-extra/xfce4-mount-plugin
>      Available versions:  0.5.5 {debug}
>      Homepage:            http://www.xfce.org/
>      Description:         Mount plugin for the Xfce panel
>
>That last one should put you on the right path for sure.

hi dale, i do have the mount panel plugin already, but it's just an
interface to what's in fstab. not very useful when you have several usb
disks and pendrives with different file systems on them, that you want to
mount on the fly...

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:31:07 -0200
schrieb luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy>:

> hello list,

Hi,
 
> i'm old-fashioned and i never cared for this automount thing, but now i
> have two pen drives and two usb hard disks that i have to mount and umount
> all the time, and doing it by hand every time is beginning to be very
> annoying...
> 
> i see that distributions like ubuntu and others have this feature by
> default: you plug in a pen drive and it creates a mount point under /media
> and mounts the device there. but i have no idea to get something like that
> working on my gentoo machine. i searched the web, but the documents i
> found on the subject are somewhat contradictory and all of them too old
> for comfort. 
> 
> any hints about a standard "gentoo way" to achieve this?
>
> by the way, i use xfce, so i can't use tools specific for kde or gnome, if
> they exist.

It seems that for Xfce you want the Thunar Volume Manager plugin
(xfce-extra/thunar-volman):
http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/thunar-plugins/thunar-volman

Otherwise, I know of three modern (i.e. udev or udisks based) desktop
independent ways for auto-mounting:
- uam
  A udev based auto-mounter. It doesn't mount CD/DVD/etc. drives (because, well,
  it's udev-based), but otherwise worked flawlessly on my machine.
- udiskie
  A udisks based auto-mounter, doesn't work properly for me, i.e. one of
  my USB sticks wouldn't mount, apparently because udisks flagged it as
  non-automountable.
- udisks-glue
  A udisks based tool that can execute arbitrary commands on udisks events, e.g.
  auto-mount disks.

(My personal preference is currently udisks-glue.)

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet

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Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[luis jure]

hi marc,


>It seems that for Xfce you want the Thunar Volume Manager plugin

i had already installed this plugin, but it doesn't seem to do much: an
icon for the device appears on the side panel, but no corresponding mount
point is created under /media. when i click on the icon a "Not Authorized"
message appears. 

>Otherwise, I know of three modern (i.e. udev or udisks based) desktop
>independent ways for auto-mounting:

thanks for the suggestions. i'm thinking of giving udiskie a try, but i'm
unable to find any documentation about it: what am i supposed to do after
installation? anything to configure, init scripts to run?

alles gute,

lj

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[luis jure]

on 2011-02-26 at 11:30 luis jure wrote:


>i had already installed this plugin, but it doesn't seem to do much: an
>icon for the device appears on the side panel, but no corresponding mount
>point is created under /media. when i click on the icon a "Not Authorized"
>message appears. 

i'm getting somewhat closer, it seems. launching an xfce session as root
i can sure mount the device, but not as normal user. from thunar i get the
message above, and typing udiskie on a console, i get this:

failed to mount device /org/freedesktop/UDisks/devices/sdc1:
org.freedesktop.UDisks.Error.PermissionDenied: Not Authorized

hmmmm.... any hints? 

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:30:45 -0200
schrieb luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy>:

> hi marc,

Hi Luis,
 
> >It seems that for Xfce you want the Thunar Volume Manager plugin
> 
> i had already installed this plugin, but it doesn't seem to do much: an
> icon for the device appears on the side panel, but no corresponding mount
> point is created under /media. when i click on the icon a "Not Authorized"
> message appears. 
[...]
> thanks for the suggestions. i'm thinking of giving udiskie a try, but i'm
> unable to find any documentation about it: what am i supposed to do after
> installation? anything to configure, init scripts to run?

Udiskie runs as a user process, so you just need to start it during login.

According to the README file [0], udiskie uses consolekit to obtain necessary
permissions. That means that you need to emerge xfce4-session with the use
flags +consolekit. If you do not already have that use flag set then that is
probably why thunar-volman did not work correctly. If it is not already the
case, you will need to add consolekit to the default runlevel.

> alles gute,
> 
> lj

[0] viewable online at
https://bitbucket.org/byronclark/udiskie/src/62047ac3fdaf/README

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet

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Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[luis jure]

on 2011-02-26 at 15:47 Marc Joliet wrote:


>According to the README file [0], udiskie uses consolekit to obtain
>necessary permissions. That means that you need to emerge xfce4-session
>with the use flags +consolekit. 

i recompiled xfce4-session with +consolekit, but the situation remains
unchanged.


>If it is not already the case, you will need to add consolekit to the
>default runlevel.

ditto.   :-(

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Sat, 26 Feb 2011 13:14:32 -0200
schrieb luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy>:

> on 2011-02-26 at 15:47 Marc Joliet wrote:
> 
> 
> >According to the README file [0], udiskie uses consolekit to obtain
> >necessary permissions. That means that you need to emerge xfce4-session
> >with the use flags +consolekit. 
> 
> i recompiled xfce4-session with +consolekit, but the situation remains
> unchanged.
> 
> 
> >If it is not already the case, you will need to add consolekit to the
> >default runlevel.
> 
> ditto.   :-(

Hmm, how do you start your xfce session? I assumed that Xfce comes with it's
own login manager, but I can't find any references to one (except in an email
from 2003 mentioning xfce-mcs-manager). The Gentoo Xfce guide only mentions
SLiM.

My understanding is that the session needs to register with the consolekit
daemon, which is done either by the login/display manager or with the help of
ck-launch-session. If you start Xfce via "startxfce4" then you need to preface
that with ck-launch-session, i.e. "ck-launch-session startxfce4". You can try
starting xfce that way from a shell outside of X.

For comparison, I have the following setup:
- consolekit installed with +pam +policykit
- slim as login manager with per-user .xinitrc
- in ~/.xinitrc, start my window manager with "exec ck-launch-session awesome"

One more random idea: maybe xfce4-session needs the policykit use flag set, too?
I really don't know if it's needed here, but you can try.

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--

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Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Christoph Brendes]

Hi, for me it works (xfce 4.8 with udev and udisk)

please check if you

- enable the volume manager (thunar preferences: "Advanced" tab)
- you are in the plugdev group

On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:30:45 -0200
luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy> wrote:

> >It seems that for Xfce you want the Thunar Volume Manager plugin
> 
> i had already installed this plugin, but it doesn't seem to do much:
> an icon for the device appears on the side panel, but no
> corresponding mount point is created under /media. when i click on
> the icon a "Not Authorized" message appears. 

Regards,
Christoph

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[luis jure]

on 2011-02-26 at 16:17 Christoph Brendes wrote:


>Hi, for me it works (xfce 4.8 with udev and udisk)
>
>please check if you
>
>- enable the volume manager (thunar preferences: "Advanced" tab)
>- you are in the plugdev group

yes to both... :-(

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Christoph Brendes]

On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 13:27:11 -0200
luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy> wrote:

> on 2011-02-26 at 16:17 Christoph Brendes wrote:
> 
> 
> >Hi, for me it works (xfce 4.8 with udev and udisk)
> >
> >please check if you
> >
> >- enable the volume manager (thunar preferences: "Advanced" tab)
> >- you are in the plugdev group
> 
> yes to both... :-(

Did you use HAL?

Christoph

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Duong "Yang" Ha Nguyen]

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On Sat, 26 Feb 2011, Christoph Brendes wrote:

> On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 13:27:11 -0200
> luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy> wrote:
>
> > on 2011-02-26 at 16:17 Christoph Brendes wrote:
> >
> >
> > >Hi, for me it works (xfce 4.8 with udev and udisk)
> > >
> > >please check if you
> > >
> > >- enable the volume manager (thunar preferences: "Advanced" tab)
> > >- you are in the plugdev group
> >
> > yes to both... :-(
>
> Did you use HAL?
>
> Christoph
>
>

Hal is deprecated.  Try avoiding it as much as possible.

Best regards,
-- 
Dương "Yang" Hà Nguyễn
Web log: http://cmpitg.wordpress.com/
"Life is a hack"

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Version: 3.12
GIT/C/ED/L d++ s-:-(:) !a C+++(++++) ULU++++>$ P-- L+++>$ E+++
W++>+++ N+ o+ K w--- O- M@ V- PS+ PE++ Y+>++ PGP++ t+ 5 X+ R-
tv+ b+++ DI+++ D++ G+++ e* h* r* y-
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Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[luis jure]

on 2011-02-27 at 10:20 Duong "Yang" Ha Nguyen wrote:

>Hal is deprecated.  Try avoiding it as much as possible.

that's what i'm doing, for sure!

Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Stéphane Guedon]

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On Sunday 27 February 2011 12:13:21 luis jure wrote:
> on 2011-02-27 at 10:20 Duong "Yang" Ha Nguyen wrote:
> >Hal is deprecated.  Try avoiding it as much as possible.
> 
> that's what i'm doing, for sure!

I have read all the discussion, and, unfortunately, I can't help you Luis.
But I am asking the way to assign mountpoint like hal did.

As it is said, Hal is deprecated. But it was easy to say "when you plug 
6566-3243 flash drive, the mountpoint should be my_usbdisk".

Now, automounting works good and great for me with udev/udisks, no problem, 
except that I would like to have the same behavior : having my drives to the 
mount point I want (having good icons rather than just a usual folder icon 
would be a plus !).

I am right now on KDE 4.6, and so...

-- 
Stéphane Guedon
page web : http://www.22decembre.eu/
carte de visite : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.vcf
clé publique gpg : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.asc

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Re: [gentoo-user] automounting usb drives

[Stéphane Guedon]

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On Sunday 27 February 2011 13:39:49 Stéphane Guedon wrote:
> On Sunday 27 February 2011 12:13:21 luis jure wrote:
> > on 2011-02-27 at 10:20 Duong "Yang" Ha Nguyen wrote:
> > >Hal is deprecated.  Try avoiding it as much as possible.
> > 
> > that's what i'm doing, for sure!
> 
> I have read all the discussion, and, unfortunately, I can't help you Luis.
> But I am asking the way to assign mountpoint like hal did.
> 
> As it is said, Hal is deprecated. But it was easy to say "when you plug
> 6566-3243 flash drive, the mountpoint should be my_usbdisk".
> 
> Now, automounting works good and great for me with udev/udisks, no problem,
> except that I would like to have the same behavior : having my drives to
> the mount point I want (having good icons rather than just a usual folder
> icon would be a plus !).
> 
> I am right now on KDE 4.6, and so...

solved using mlabel...
I needed to look upon ubuntu doc ! This is a little bit crap !

but thanks ! :-)

-- 
Stéphane Guedon
page web : http://www.22decembre.eu/
carte de visite : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.vcf
clé publique gpg : http://www.22decembre.eu/downloads/Stephane-Guedon.asc

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