Re: fstab for usb devices in Squeeze

[Ivan Shmakov <ivan@gray.siamics.net>]

>>>>> Mark Grieveson <dg135@torfree.net> writes:

 >> My fstab doesn't have any entries for usb disks.  I use fluxbox and
 >> I use pcmanfm (a file manager) to mount/unmount usb sticks.

 > That's interesting.  A while back, when I tossed out gnome and gdm in
 > favour of fluxbox and startx, I likely also removed automatic mounting
 > processes in my computer.  So, I had to set up stuff to manually mount
 > things, which resulted in the fstab entries I used to have.  That
 > having changed in Squeeze has caused some issues -- IE, it seems the
 > labelling of all drives became different.

	While the labelling of IDE and SATA drives could be based on
	controller's port numbers, it's impractical to do so for USB
	Mass Storage devices (or should I say endpoints?), as there may
	be a practically unlimited number of those on a single bus.

	Therefore, the “dynamic” labelling becomes a must.

	Then, one cannot be certain that a particular /dev/sdX device
	cannot one day turn from being a USB stick to being a newly
	added HDD, which is a security issue for a multi-user host.

 > Anyway, to avoid having to look up the specific UUID each time I
 > insert a new device, it may be useful for me to look into setting up
 > some sort of automatic mounting utility (like installing pmount,
 > maybe).

	pmount(1) isn't about automatic mounting.  Rather, it's about
	delivering a restricted mount(8)-capability to the users, which
	is quite similar to the ‘user’ fstab(5) option.

	However, while mount(8) only allows the filesystems explicitly
	listed in fstab(5) to be mounted, pmount(1) allows any block
	device to be mounted to any directory, provided that, roughly:

	• the block device is owned by a specific group (e. g., floppy);

	• the directory is a subdirectory of /media/, and isn't already
	  a mount point for a filesystem.

-- 
FSF associate member #7257