Re: Absolutely cannot write to USB drive

[Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net>]

On 01/09/08 15:35, Bob McGowan wrote:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > On 09/01/2008, Sjoerd Hardeman <sjoerd@lorentz.leidenuniv.nl> wrote:
> > > It is strange that hal isn't mounting it. Is hal running properly (try
> > > lshal).
> >
> > I got lots of output from that command, so I assume that HAL is running.
> >
> > > You can mount in userspace using pmount /dev/sdb1. It will then mount
> > > under /media/sdb1 with read-write privileges for the user that mounted
> > > the drive. If you want a user to be able to read-write with a
> > > root-mount, make sure you state the proper rights in the fstab-entry.
> > > Make a group that is allowed to read-write to the device, and add
> > > /dev/sdb1 /media/usb auto rw,users,noauto,gid=xxx,umask=007 0 0
> > > with xxx replaced by the id of that group (or give system wide
> > > read-write privileges by stating umask=000)
> > > As fat doesn't support a proper security-model, you have to specify that
> > > yourself. Else only root can read.
> > > Good luck!
> >
> > Thanks, I did not know about pmount. I'll remove the fstab entry and
> > use pmount from now on.
> >
> > I'd still like to get HAL mounting this disk. I installed and maintain
> > a dozen or so friends' ubuntu, and if they ever come across this I'd
> > like to have a solution ready.
> >
> > Dotan Cohen
> >
> > http://what-is-what.com
> > http://gibberish.co.il
> > א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת
> >
> > A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
> > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
>
> You might want to look into automounting.  Take a look at these two 
> articles, on udev naming and setting up autofs, for details.
>
>   http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/126
>   http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/127
>
> The advantages with automounting are that you don't have to do anything, 
> just access a file or directory on the device to mount it, stop access 
> and unplug it (umount is automatic).

GNOME and KDE are *supposed* to do this for you.

If he uses GNOME, does OP have gnome-mount and gnome-volume-manager 
installed?

> This last could be an issue, though, since you must have stopped access 
> with all programs before autofs will do the umount.

Definitely.  Especially when copying an important doc to a thumb 
drive, and it's only 1/2 copied when you tank it out.

Besides, explicitly unmounting devices is a good habit to get into, 
and I know for a fact that even Linux novices can easily be trained 
to do it.

--
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA  USA

"I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian
because I hate vegetables!"
unknown