Automount partitions Ubuntu 10.x

[rgb1701]

Apparently, I'm not alone in my sentiments-

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1498130

https://answers.launchpad.net/disk-m...+question/7114

Requiring unique disklabels (which are simpler than UUID's) on partitions needs to be mandatory, to simplify automounting by disklabel.

The problem with referencing drives by /dev/sdb1, sdc2, etc is that these designations can re-assign themselves between reboots at random *without* adding/removing internal IDE/SATA physical drives installed in a machine (I've had it happen on a couple of my boxes)! Adding/removing internal IDE/SATA drives and/or USB drives further complicates the /dev/sXYZ designations for automounting purposes.

Also, a drive/partition that is referenced as /dev/sdc1 on one machine, will not likely be the same when connected to another machine, so the only two unique identifiers for a partition are UUID or disklabel. The UUID is too long and technical, so that leaves the disklabel.

[Morbius1]

Requiring unique disklabels (which are simpler than UUID's) on partitions needs to be mandatory, to simplify automounting by disklabel.

How do you propose to make a unique disk label or any disk label mandatory? This is usually set at the time the partition is initially formatted.

EDIT: Just to make this clear. By default, these non system partitions that are not defined in fstab will mount when selected to /media/disk-label. It's hard wired to do that. The reason you are getting /media/UUID-number is because the partition has no label.

[vanadium]

To the OP: I think pmount is the tool you are after. You could include the command in the user's autostart.

[rgb1701]

How do you propose to make a unique disk label or any disk label mandatory? This is usually set at the time the partition is initially formatted.

EDIT: Just to make this clear. By default, these non system partitions that are not defined in fstab will mount when selected to /media/disk-label. It's hard wired to do that. The reason you are getting /media/UUID-number is because the partition has no label.

It is trivial to change the disklabel of a partition after OS install with gparted, or the System>Administration>Disk Utility that is available by default in Ubuntu 10.x,

http://petermoulding.com/smart_disk
http://blog.rogersoles.com/2010/06/2...-disk-utility/

or the terminal with mlabel or e2label-

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...14&postcount=6

requiring the sudo password, of course.

If a newly inserted/installed partition or USB drive had the same label as an existing mounted parttion, the OS could prompt the user to update the disklabel of a conflicting device (asking for the sudo password, of course), or simply apply a -1, -2, etc to the disklabel to identify a unique mountpoint at /media.

Ubuntu 10.x already does the -1,-2,... numbering for inserted USB drives without disklabels, calling them disk-1, disk-2, etc

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount/USB

Another good disklabel HOWTo-

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RenameUSBDrive

Mountpoint HOWTO-
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MoveMountpointHowto

[Morbius1]

Yes but:

How do you propose to make a unique disk label or any disk label mandatory?

EDIT: So now we're talking about external devices ?

[rgb1701]

To the OP: I think pmount is the tool you are after. You could include the command in the user's autostart.

EDIT- That was NOT the droid I was looking for

That is NOT the command being executed when you mouseclick unmounted partitions in Places>Removable Drives

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/.../pmount.1.html

http://packages.ubuntu.com/maverick/pmount

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pmount

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=375768

I found this- the gvfs-mount command
http://sukiprattle.blogspot.com/2010...vfs-mount.html

[rgb1701]

Yes but:

EDIT: So now we're talking about external devices ?

My OP was referring to internal IDE/SATA partitions, but my rant covered the inconsistent mount behavior of USB connected partitions vs. internal IDE/SATA partitions

[texas.chef94]

No big objection to changing fstab- I just wanted a method that didn't require manual fstab editing or the need for the mountpoint directory to exist already.

http://opendesktop.org/content/show....?content=78270

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/mount-mana...artitions.html

Personally, I have no barrier to editing fstab manually, but I prefer point and click methods, and I need simple GUI methods in order to instruct non-techie types in how to automount partitions.

Automounting is important for DVR/PVR machines running MythTV, for example. I always set Myth to record to a partition and/or drive separate from the OS / partition. If there is a power failure and the machine restarts (for any reason), the recording partition needs to be there (mounted) at startup. When I tell a non-techie user how to install Mythbuntu with a simple point and click procedure, I need a similarly simple point and click GUI method to let them automount their recording partition/drive.

I would appreciate your carrying this thought/process a bit further.
I suddenly find myself in need of a data partition and I have set one up in hopes to go from there.
Could you point me to a resource or give me the terminal commands to get full permission, as well as how exactly do I access to write to after this is done. Thanks

[rgb1701]

I think I found what I need-

gvfs-mount

http://sukiprattle.blogspot.com/2010...vfs-mount.html

which appears to be what is executed when mouse clicking an unmounted partition to mount it in Places>Removable Media, based on my observations of the relevant processes shown in htop when I clicked partitions there.

The link above addresses exactly the issues highlighted in my OP.

Mountmanager requires the account password, plus it appears to need the mount path specified- I wanted the mount path defined automatically by disklabel.

Pmount did not work with non-removable drives, i.e. internal IDE/SATA partitions.

In any event, I wanted the terminal command that replicated the Places>Removable Media mouse click functionality, which gvfs-mount appears to do, and is articulated well at the link above:

Why automounting on startup? (These are just few reasons.Might be lot of other possibilities)

* the collection of wallpaper you using are placed in that partition
* Icons for launcher which is placed in that partition
* You want it to be available each time you boot


Why use gvfs-mount
Usually when talking about automounting on startup people would suggest user to add entries in /etc/fstab. The problem is that if we mount a partition from fstab, we need to have admin right to unmount/remount the partition. And another uncool thing is that if we automount using mount command & entries in fstab, anything that we delete from the partition will not go into trash instead it will be deleted from your harddisk as soon as you click delete. You wont find it in trash, believe me.

Automount using gvfs-mount is a totally opposite story. Any partition you mount using gvfs-mount command can be unmount/remount without administrative privilege. Besides that anything we delete will go to trash first. So if we accidently deleted something we can find it back & restore from trash.

[rgb1701]

I would appreciate your carrying this thought/process a bit further.
I suddenly find myself in need of a data partition and I have set one up in hopes to go from there.
Could you point me to a resource or give me the terminal commands to get full permission, as well as how exactly do I access to write to after this is done. Thanks

I assume your DATA partition (/dev/sda5) appears in Places>Removable Media?

If you click on it there, does it mount (show up on the desktop) and can you read/write to it?

Assuming it appears in your Places>Removable Media menu, just add the command

gvfs-mount -d /dev/sda5

to your

System > Preferences > Startup Applications

per

http://sukiprattle.blogspot.com/2010...vfs-mount.html