[SOLVED] UDev rules and detecting powered up SATA HDD in 5.25 enclosure

lpallard · 09-07-2010, 07:22 PM

My new question is pretty straight forward. I have 3X 5.25 SATA removable bays with hard drives in it. I am working on a new script
to manually backup some very important data to those drives. Basically, to eliminate risks of burning the HDD's, or accidentally (either by me or my scripts) destroy data, I normally keep those drives offline, i.e. unpowered. The enclosures are Vantec EZ swap and require a key to turn them on/off. Once it is turned on, Slackware see them without a glitch. My script will basically display a message to warn that the backup is about to happen, then once the user click the OK button, mount the partition to a local folder and then backup the data. The partition will then be unmounted and a new message will be displayed to ask the user to "unplug" the HDD. Cron will take care of the schedule.

Basically, in pseudo code:

Code:

1-Verify if sdd is connected (powered)... If so, procee to #2, else display message box "The HDD is not connected"
2-Mount the partition sdd5 to the local folder
3-Backup
4-Unmount the partition from the local folder
5-Display a message box "The backup was completed with success.  You can now disconnect the HDD"

Now to the question, how can I automate the detection of the hdd? I would like the script to poll or probe the HDD to see if it was properly turned on, and if so, proceed with the rest... I tried all kind of stuff but no luck... For example, fdisk -l will list the drive & its partitions if it is connected (powered) and wont if the drive is not connected. I cant use the output of fdisk to efficiently accomplish what I am trying to do...

The second question is more complicated. I want the script to display the messages boxes (Please plug the HDD & You can now unplug the HDD) to a different display (i.e. my laptop). The reason is because the script will run on my server that has no monitor...

any idea? Thanks!!

JZL240I-U · 09-08-2010, 02:36 AM

http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Customizing_UDEV

Were you looking for something like this?

I can't really help you with the second question. Aside the fact that you very, umm, sparsely described your physical setup here is a rough outline how it might be done: create a XWindow session on your laptop which gets the data for instance via ssh. Details might better come by in a dedicated thread...

lpallard · 09-11-2010, 05:08 PM

JZL240I-U, thanks for replying! I will try what you suggested as soon as my laptop is back in action, I am having major problems right now... We'll post soon!

10110111 · 09-11-2010, 06:38 PM

Quote:

I want the script to display the messages boxes (Please plug the HDD & You can now unplug the HDD)

You can use gxmessage to show dialogs.

Use DISPLAY environment variable to direct gxmessage what X server and display to use (e.g. DISPLAY=YourLaptopIP:0.0)

You'll have to use xhost command to allow the server access to your laptop's X server.

lpallard · 01-08-2011, 06:47 PM

Thanks for your replies! I am closing this thread since I sold the enclosures therefore I no longer need to play around with UDEV rules...

Thanks to all!