Force External USB HDD to mount to certain folder

predatorz · 06-17-2008, 05:57 AM

Hi,

I tried Google but unable to find anything conclusive on this, or perhaps my google skill sucks.

Is there a way in linux to force external USB HDD to automount to a certain folder when it is plugged into a linux machine?

Thanks for any help.

pwc101 · 06-17-2008, 06:05 AM

Define the mount in /etc/fstab. If your distro (which is?...) automounts devices, it should still mount to where you specify in /etc/fstab. That is at least the case in Slackware 12.1.

tredegar · 06-17-2008, 08:34 AM

The name of the USB disk will change (sdb sdc sdd etc.), according to what other USB devices you have plugged in or uplugged.
This makes it difficult to sort out with fstab, unless you define it as LABEL=<label> or UUID=<uuid> (see man fstab )

The other way to go about this would be to write a udev rule to handle where the disk is mounted.
See here: http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html (the are examples towards the end)

predatorz · 06-17-2008, 08:37 PM

Thanks, i will go and read up.

jiml8 · 06-18-2008, 11:26 AM

If you are using udev, you can do it with a udev rule. Specifically, check for the device ID when it is plugged in, and if it is THIS device (and no other) mount it HERE. You can force the exact mount you want with a script that is invoked from the udev rule.

To give an example, I have a USB pen drive that is not properly detected by udev. So I wrote this rule to identify it:

Code:

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb",  SYSFS{product}=="USB Flash Memory", KERNEL=="sd?1", NAME="%k", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="flashmem%n", RUN+="/etc/udev/scripts/penmount.sh flashmem%n pendrive%n"

The rule specifically looks for a usb device that identifies itself as "USB Flash Memory" which is how my PNY Technologies pen drive identifies itself. When the device is identified, a script named penmount.sh is invoked:

Code:

#!bin/bash
if [ "$ACTION" == "add" ]; then
mkdir /media/"$2"
mount -t vfat -o rw,user,auto,sync,noatime,umask=0 /dev/"$1" /media/"$2"
chmod 777 /media/"$2"
else
umount /media/"$2"
rmdir /media/"$2"
fi

This script actually mounts the drive.